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IN SEARCH OE

GRAVESTONES

OLD AND CURIOUS.

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Frontispiece.

AN EARLY EXAMPLE AT HIGHAM.

(See page 11.)

I15D

'ini

MHf

IN SEARCH OF

GRAVESTONES

OLD AND CURIOUS;

OTttf) ©ne Huntfr^tf antf Eton Illugtrattnntf.

\\V<0^

W T! VINCENT,

PRESIDENT OF THE WOOLWICH DISTRICT ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY ;
AUTHOR OF “THE RECORDS OF THE WOOLWICH DISTRICT,”
ETC,, ETC.

LONDON :

MITCHELL & HUGHES, 140 W ARDOUR STREET.

1896.

TO THE EIGHT HON OTJEABLE

EARL STANHOPE, F.S.A.,

LORD LIEUTENANT OE KENT,

PRESIDENT OE THE KENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,

ETC.,

THIS COLLECTION OE

anti Curious Crabestoues

IS BY SPECIAL PERMISSION

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE

I am a Gravestone Rambler, and I beg yon to bear
me company.

! l This Book is not a Sermon. It is a lure to decoy
other Ramblers, and the bait is something to ramble
for. It also provides a fresh object for study.

Old-lore is an evergreen tree with many branches.
This is a young shoot. It is part of an old theme,
but is itself new.

Books about Tombs there are many, and volumes
of Epitaphs by the hundred. But of the Common
Gravestones — the quaint and curious, often grotesque,
headstones of the churchyard — there is no record.

These gravestones belong to the past, and are
hastening to decay. In one or two centuries none
will survive unless they be in Museums. To preserve
the counterfeit presentment of some which remain
seems a duty.

Many may share the quest, but no one has yet come
out to start. Let your servant shew the way.

I begin my book as I began my Rambles, and
pursue as I have pursued.

WILLIAM THOMAS VINCENT.

■

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Old Gravestones . 1

II. The Evolution oe Gravestones . . 9

III. Artistic Gravestones .... 20

IV. Professional Gravestones ... 31

Y. A Typical Tramp in Kent ... 35

VI. More Typical Tramps .... 43

VII. Earlier Gravestones .... 49

YIII. Reform among the Gravestones . . 57

IX. Preserving the Gravestones ... 62

X. Old Gravestones in Ireland . . . 78

XI. Old Gravestones in Scotland . . 84

XII. Old Gravestones Abroad ... 91

XIII. Very Old Gravestones .... 97

XIV. The Regulation of Gravestones . . 105

Index . Ill

ILLUSTRATIONS OF GRAVESTONES

To face Page

An Early Example at Hi Guam . Frontispiece

1 and 2, Newhaven . 1

3, Widcombe ; 4, Newhaven ; 5, Lewes . . 3

6, PlTTMSTEAD ; 7 AND 8, HARTFORD ... 5

9, Frankfort; 10, East Wickham ... 9

11, Ridley; 12, Hoo . 10

13, Erith; 14, High Halstow .... 12

15, Frindsbury ; 16, Higham .... 13

17, Shorne and Chalk . 14

18, Meopham; 19, Stanstead; 20, Old Romney . 16

21, Crayford; 22, Shoreham .... 17

23, Lewisham; 24, Hornsey .... 17

25, Teddington ; 26, Finchley ; 27, Farnborotjgh 18

28, Chiselhtjrst ; 29, Hartley .... 19

30, West Wickham; 31, Hornsey ... 19

32, Horton Kirby; 33, Cliffe .... 20

34, Darenth; 35, Kingsdown . . . .21

36, Fawkham; 37, Swanscombe .... 22

38, Ashford; 39, Cooling . 23

40, Hendon; 41, East Wickham .... 24

42, Snargate; 43, East Ham .... 24

44, Wilmington; 45, Wanstead; 46, Southfleet;

47, Wilmington . 25

48, Lewisham; 49, Bunhill Fields ... 26

50, Woolwich; 51, Longfield .... 27

52, Lydd; 53, Bermondsey . 29

54, Richmond; 55, Ripley . 30

Xll

ILLUSTRATIONS OF GRAVESTONES.

To face Page

56, Cobham; 57, Barnes . 31

58, Frindsbury; 59, Sutton at Hone . . .32

60, Bromley; 61, Beckenham .... 33

62, Gtreenford; 63, West Ham .... 34

64, Lee; 65, Orpington . 38

66, St. Mary Cray; 67, St. Paul’s Cray . . 40

68, Foot’s Cray; 69, Bexley .... 41

70, Barking; 71, Woolwich .... 43

72, Deptford; 78, West Ham .... 44

74 and 75, Wanstead . 44

76, Walthamstow; 77, Broxbourne ... 45

78, Stapleford Tawney; 79, Shorne ... 48

80, Bethnal Green; 81, Plumstead ... 65

82, Cheshunt; 83, Hatfield .... 69

84, Northolt; 85, Twickenham .... 71

86, High Barnet; 87, Kingston-on-Thames . 76

88, Swords . 78

89, Drogheda . . 80

90, Bangor ; 91, Muckross and Queenstown . 82

92, Inverness ; 93, Braemar . 85

94, Stirling . 87

95, Blairgowrie . 88

96, Laufen . 91

97, Neuhausen . 92

98, Heidelberg; 99, Lucerne .... 94

100, The Bressay Stone ; 101, Lunnasting and

Kilbar Stones . 99

Fig. 1.

Newhaven.

Fig. 2.

Newhaven.

IN SEARCH OF

GRAVESTONES

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER I.

OLD GRAVESTONES.

I was sauntering about the churchyard at Newhaven
in Sussex, reading the inscriptions on the tombs,
when my eyes fell upon a headstone somewhat
elaborately carved. Although aged, it was in good
preservation, and without much trouble I succeeded
in deciphering all the details and sketching the
subject in my note-book. It is represented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. — AT NEWHAVEN, SUSSEX.

The inscription below the design reads as follows :

“Here lyeth the remains of Andrew Brown,
who departed this life the 14th day of
January 1768, aged 66 years. Also of
Mary his wife, who departed this life the
3d day of July 1802, aged 88 years.55

This was the first time I had been struck by an
allegorical gravestone of a pronounced character.

The subject scarcely needs to be interpreted,
being obviously intended to illustrate the well-known

GRAVESTONES

passage in the Burial Service : “ For the trumpet
shall sounds and the dead shall he raised .... then
shall he brought to pass the saying that is written.
Death is swallowed up in Victory. 0 death; where
is thy sting? 0 grave; where is thy victory?’5
The reference in another ritual to the Lord of Life
trampling the King of Terrors beneath his feet seems
also to be indicated; and it will be noticed that the
artist has employed a rather emphatic smile to
pourtray triumph.

It was but natural to suppose that this work was
the production of some local genius of the period;
and I searched for other evidences of his skill. Not
far away I found the next design; very nearly of the
same date.

Fig. 2.— AT NEWHAVEN, SUSSEX.

The words below were :

“ To the memory of Thomas, the son of
Thomas and Ann Alderton, who departed
this life the 10th day of April 1767, in the
13th year of his age.”

The same artist almost of a certainty produced
both of these figurative tombstones. The handicraft
is similar, the idea in each is equally daring and
grotesque, and the phraseology of the inscriptions is
nearly identical. I thought both conceptions original
and native to the place, but I do not think so now.
In point of taste, the first, which is really second in
order of date, is perhaps less questionable than the
other. The hope of a joyful resurrection, however
rudely displayed, may bring comfort to wounded
hearts ; but it is difficult to conceive the feelings of

Pig. 4.

Newhaven.

Pig. 5. Lewes.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

bereaved parents who could sanction the representa¬
tion of a beloved boy, cut off in the brightest hour
of life, coffined and skeletoned in the grave !

Above the coffin on Alderton’s headstone is an orna¬
ment, apparently palms. It is not unusual to find
such meaningless, or apparently meaningless, designs
employed to fill in otherwise blank spaces, though
symbols of death, eternity, and the future state are
in plentiful command for such purposes. Something
like this same ornament may be found on a very old
flat stone in the churchyard of Widcombe, near Bath.
It stretches the full width of the stone, and is in
high relief, which has preserved it long after the
accompanying inscription has vanished. The pro¬
bable date may be about 1650.

Fig. 3.— AT WIDCOMBE, NEAR BATH.

In Newhaven Churchyard, though there are but
these two striking examples of the allegorical grave¬
stone, there is one other singular exemplification of
the graver’s skill and ingenuity, but it is nearly a
score of years later in date than the others, and
probably by another mason. It represents the old
and extinct bridge over the Sussex Avon at Newhaven,
and it honours a certain brewer of the town, whose
brewery is still carried on there and is famous for its
“ Tipper” ale. Allowing that it was carved by a
different workman, it is only fair to suppose that it
may have been suggested by its predecessors. Its
originality is beyond all question, which can very
rarely be said of an old gravestone, and, as a church¬
yard record of a local institution, I have never seen
it equalled or approached.

b 2

GRAVESTONES

Fig. 4. — AT NEWHAVEN, SUSSEX.

Under the design is the following inscription :

“To the Memory of Thomas Tipper, who
departed this life May ye 14th, 1785, Aged
54 Years.

“ Readee, with kind regard this Geave survey
Nor heedless pass where Tippee’s ashes lay.

Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt, and kind;

And dared do, what few dare do, speak his mind.
Philosophy and History well he knew,

Was versed in Physick and in Surgery too.

The best old Stingo he both brewed and sold,

Nor did one knavish act to get his Gold.

He played through Life a varied comic part,

And knew immortal Hudibeas by heart.

Readee, in real truth, such was the Man,

Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can.”

That these were all the especial eccentricities of
this burial-place disappointed me, hut, with my after¬
knowledge, I may say that three such choice specimens
from one enclosure is a very liberal allowance.

Suspecting that sculptors of the quality necessary
for such high-class work would be unlikely to dwell in
a small and unimportant fisher- village such as New-
haven was in the middle of the eighteenth century, I
went over to Lewes, the county town being only seven
miles by railway. But I found nothing to shew that
Lewes was the seat of so much skill, and I have since
failed to discover the source in Brighton or any other
adjacent town. Indeed, it may be said at once that
large towns are the most unlikely of all places in
which to find peculiar gravestones. At Lewes, how¬
ever, I lighted on one novelty somewhat to my
purpose, and, although a comparatively simple illus¬
tration, it is not without its merits, and I was glad

OLD AND CURIOUS.

to add it to my small collection. The mattock and
spade are realistic of the grave; the open hook
proclaims the promise of the heaven beyond.

Em. 5. — AT LEWES.

“To Samuel Earnes* died May 6th, 1757* aged
21 years.”

The coincidence of date would almost warrant a
belief that this piece of imagery may have emanated
from the same brain and been executed by the same
hands as are accountable for the two which we have
seen seven miles away* but the workmanship is really
not in the least alike* and I have learnt almost to
discard in this connection the theory of local idiosyn¬
crasies. Even when we find* as we do find, similar*
and almost identical* designs in neighbouring church¬
yards* or in the same churchyard* it is safer to
conjecture that a meaner sculptor has copied the
earlier work than that the first designer would
weaken his inventive character by a replication. The
following* which cannot be described as less than a
distortion of a worthier model* is to be found in many
places* and in such abundance as to suggest a whole¬
sale manufacture.

Em. 6.— AT PLUMSTEAD* KENT.

“To Elizabeth Bennett* died 1781* aged
53 years.”

It is obvious that the idea intended to be repre¬
sented is figurative of death in infancy or childhood,
and illustrates the well-known words of the Saviour,
“ Suffer little children to come unto me* and forbid

GRAVESTONES

them not: for of such is the kingdom of God,5*
quoted on the stone itself. In this and many similar
cases in which the design and text are used for old
or elderly people, they have been certainly strained
from their true significance. The figure of a little
child is, however, employed occasionally to represent
the soul, and may also be taken to indicate the
“new birth.’5

There is an almost exact reproduction of the fore¬
going example in the same churchyard, even more
remarkably at variance with Scriptural interpreta¬
tion.

It is dedicated

“To John Clark, died 1793, aged 62 years;
and Rebecca his wife, died 1794, aged 61
years.55

The inscription adds :

“What manner of persons these were the last
day will discover.55

Gravestone plagiarism of this sort is very common,
and there is to he found at West Ham, Essex, the
same symbolical flight of the angel and child repeated
as many as five times.

The pilfering is not so weak and lamentable when
the copyist appropriates merely the idea and works it
out in a new fashion. The term new can hardly he
attributed to the notion of a plucked flower as a type
of death, hut it occurs in so many varieties as almost
to redeem its conventionality.

The sculptor of a stone which is in Hartford
burial-ground probably had the suggestion from a
predecessor.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Fig. 7.— AT DARTFORD.

“To James Terry,, died 1755, aged 31 years.”

But not far from it in the same burial-ground,
which is really a cemetery separated from the parish
church, and one of the oldest cemeteries in England,
is another imitation quite differently brought out,
hut in principle essentially the same.

Fig. 8.— AT DARTFORD.

“To ... . Callow, died .... 1794 . . . .”

At the churchyard of Stone (or Greenhithe), two
or three miles from Dartford, both these floral
emblems are reproduced with strict fidelity.

This first chapter and the sketches which illustrate
it will serve to introduce and explain my work and its
scope.

In pursuing my investigations it was soon evident
that the period of the allegorical gravestone was
confined sharply and almost exclusively to the
eighteenth century. I have seldom met one earlier

than 1700, and those subsequent

rare. Of gravestones generally it may almost be
said that specimens of seventeenth-century date are
exceedingly few. There are reasons for this, as will
afterwards appear. But the endurance even of the
longest-lived of all the old memorials cannot he very
much longer extended, and this may he my excuse
for preserving and perpetuating the features of some
of them as a not uninteresting phase of the vanishing
past. I do not claim for my subject any great
importance, hut present it as one of the small

GRAVESTONES

contributions which make np history. One other
plea I may urge in my defence. This is a branch of
study which; so far as I can ascertain, has been quite
neglected. There are books by the score dealing
with the marble, alabaster, and other tombs within
the churches, there are books of epitaphs and elegies
by the hundred, and there are meditations among
the graves sufficient to satisfy the most devout and
exacting of readers, but the simple gravestone of
the churchyard as an object of sculptured interest
has I believe found hitherto no student and is still
looking for its historian.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTEE II.

THE EVOLUTION OF GEAVESTONES.

Although there may be no expectation of discovering
the germ of the pictorial or allegorical gravestone, a
section of the samples collected for this essay may he
displayed to shew the earlier forms in which the
ruder class of masons prepared their sculptured monu¬
ments for the churchyard. There is little doubt that
the practice originated in an endeavour to imitate on
the common gravestone the nobler memorials of the
churches and cathedrals, the effort being more or less
successful in proportion to the individual skill of the
artist. The influence of locality, however, must
always be a factor in this consideration ; for, as a rule,
it will be found that the poorest examples come from
essentially secluded places, while localities of earlier
enlightenment furnish really admirable work of much
prior date. Take, for instance, that most frequent
emblem, the skull. I have not sought for the model
by which the village sculptor worked, but I have in
my note-book this sketch of a skull, copied from a
sixteenth-century tomb at Frankfort on the Maine,
and there are doubtless a vast number equal to it in
English cathedrals and churches of the same period.

Fig. 9.— AT FEANKFOET, GEEMANY.

Eegarding this as our ideal, the primitive work
which we find in rural localities must be pronounced

GRAVESTONES

degenerated art. Generally speaking we may assume
that the carver of the stately tomb within the church
had no hand in the execution of the outer gravestone ;
but that quite early there were able masons employed
upon the decoration of the churchyard headstone is
shewn in many instances, of which the one presented
in Fig. 10 may serve as a very early specimen.

Fig. 10.— AT EAST WICKHAM.

“ To Eliza and Lydia, the two wives of Anthony
Neighbours, died 18th Nov. 1675 and 11th
March 1702.”

The dates are remarkable in connection with such
an elaborate work. East Wickham is little more
than a village even now, and this carving is very
creditable in comparison with other attempts of the
same early period ; but the high road from London to
Dover runs through the parish, and may have carried
early cultivation into the district. All the rougher
illustrations which I have found have been in remote
and isolated spots, or spots that were remote and
isolated when the stones were set up. The first of
these which I discovered was in the little churchyard
of Ridley in Kent, “far from the haunts of men.”

Fig. 11.— AT RIDLEY.

“To the three sons of Will. Deane, died 1704,
1707, and 1709, aged 2 weeks, 2 years,
and 5 years.”

It is difficult to believe that the face here delineated
was meant to represent a skull, and yet, judging by
the many equally and more absurd figures which I

OLD AND CURIOUS.

have since met with, there is little doubt that a skull
was intended by the engraver, for this and all others
of the class are incised, simply scratched or cut into ^
the stone ; nothing so poor in drawing have I ever
found which has risen to the eminence of relief.

It may, of course, be also surmised that the face
here cut into the stone is meant for a portrait or to
represent an angelic being. The radial lines may *
have been intended for a halo of glory or a frilled
cap* but; as will be seen by comparison, the whole
thing is easily to be classed with the skull series.

It will be noticed that we have in this instance a
form of headstone differing materially from those of
later times,, and wherever we find the rude incised
figure we nearly always have the stone of this shape.
Such homely memorials are distinguished in nearly ^
every instance by dwarfishness and clumsiness. They >
are seldom more than 2 feet in height,, and are often
found to measure from 5 inches to 7 inches in thick¬
ness. A prolific field for them is the great marshland
forming the Hundred of Hoo, below Gravesend, the
scene of many incidents in the tale by Charles
Dickens of “Great Expectations.” It is called by the
natives “ the Dickens country,” for the great author
dwelt on the hilly verge of it and knew it well. The
Frontispiece shews the general view of one of these
old stones at Higham, in the Hoo district.

Frontispiece.— AT HIGHAM.

“To Philip Hawes, died June 24, 1733, aged
19 years.”

In this case the top space is occupied, not by a
head or skull, but by two hearts meeting at their
points— a not unusual illustration.

GRAVESTONES

At Hoo is one of the coarsest exemplifications of
masonic incompetency I have ever encountered.

Fig. 12.— AT HOO, NEAR ROCHESTER.

“ To Robert Scott, Yeoman, died 24 Dec. 1677,
aged 70 years.”

The nimbus or nightcap again appears as in the
Ridley specimen, but, whatever it be, the teeth are
undoubtedly the teeth of the skeleton head.

This stone has another claim to our notice beyond
the inartistic design. It marks one of the very rare
efforts in this direction of the seventeenth century.

The prevalent shape of these old memorials and
their almost contemporary dates seem to indicate a
fashion of the period, but they are met with in
other places of various conformations. There is one
at Erith almost square-headed, only 2 feet high,
1 foot 6 inches wide, and 7 inches thick.

Fig. 13.— AT ERITH.

It may be noted that this also is of the seventeenth
century, and the mode of describing John Green’s
age is, I think, unique.

High Halstow is a neighbour of Hoo, and has
only of late been penetrated by the railway to Port
Victoria.

From High Halstow we have another curious and
almost heathenish specimen, in which we see the
crossbones as an addition to the “ skull,” if “ skull ”
it can be considered, with its eyes, eyebrows, and
“ cheeks.”

Fig. 13.

Eeith.

Fig. 14.

High Halstow.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Fig. 14.— AT HIGH HALSTOW.

“ To Susan Barber.” The date is buried, but
there is a similar stone close bj dated
1699.

Hearer Rochester, at Frindsbury, there is the next
illustration, still like a mask rather than a death’s
head, but making its purpose clear by the two bones,
such as are nearly always employed in more recent
productions.

Fig, 15.— AT FRINDSBURY.

“To William David Jones, died 1721.”

There is, however, another at Higham of about the
same date, in which, supposing a skull to be intended,
the inspiration of the bones appears not to have
caught the artist. The portrait theory may possibly
better fit this case.

Fig. 16.— AT HIGHAM.

“To Mr Wm Boghurst, died 5th of April 1720,
aged 65.”

That some of the carvings were meant for portraits
cannot be denied, and, in order to shew them with
unimpeachable accuracy, I have taken rubbings off a
few and present an untouched photograph of them
just as I rubbed them off the stones (Fig. 17). The
whole of the originals are to be found in the neigh¬
bouring churchyards of Shorne and Chalk, two rural
parishes on the Rochester Road, and exhibit with all
the fidelity possible the craftsmanship of the village
sculptors. They will doubtless also excite some

GEAVESTONES

speculation as to their meaning. My belief, as
already expressed, is that the uppermost four are tbe
embodiment of tbe rustic yearning for tbe ideal ; in
z other words, attempts to represent tbe emblem of
death — the skull. Nos. 1 and 2 are from Sborne;
Nos. 3, 4, and 5 from the churchyard at Chalk.

In No. 1 we have, perhaps, the crudest conception
extant of the skeleton head. The lower bars are
probably meant for teeth ; what the radial lines on
the crown are supposed to he is again conjecture.
Perhaps a nimbus, perhaps hair or a cap, or merely
an ornamental finish. The inscription states that
the stone was erected to the memory of “ Thomas
Ydall,” who died in 1704, aged 63 years.

No. 2 has the inscription buried, but it is of about
the same date, judging by its general appearance.
The strange feature in this case is the zig-zag
“ toothing 55 which is employed to represent the
jaws. Doubtless the artist thought that anything he
might have lost in accuracy he regained in the
picturesque.

No. 3, in which part of the inscription “Here
lyeth ” intrudes into the arch belonging by right to
the illustration, is equally primitive and artless.
The eyebrows, cheeks — in fact all the features — are
evidently unassisted studies from the living, not the
dead, frontispiece of humanity ; but what are the
serifs, or projections, on either side ? Wondrous as
it is, there can be only one answer. They must be
meant for ears ! This curious effigy commemorates
Mary, wife of William Greenhill, who died in 1717,
aged 47 years.

No. 4 is one of the rude efforts to imitate the skull
and crossbones of which we find many examples. It is

Fig. 17,

Shorne and Chalk.

RUBBINGS FROM HEADSTONES,

OLD AND CURIOUS.

dedicated to one Grinhill (probably a kinsman of the
Greenhills aforesaid) , who died in 172(1, aged 56 years.

Most strange of all is No. 5, in which the
mason leaps to the real from the emblematic, and
gives ns something which is evidently meant for
a portrait of the departed. The stone records that
Mary, wife of Thomas Jackson, died in 1730, aged
43 years. It is one of the double tombstones fre¬
quently met with in Kent and some other counties.
The second half, which is headed by a picture of two
united hearts, records that the widower Thomas
Jackson followed his spouse in 1748, aged 55 years.

Upon a stone adjacent, to Mary London, who died
in 1731, there has been another portrait of a lady
with braided hair, but time has almost obliterated
it. I mention the circumstance to shew that this
special department of obituary masonry, as all others,
was prone to imitations. I may also remark that
intelligent inhabitants and constant frequenters of
these two churchyards have informed me that in all
the hundreds of times of passing these stones they
never observed any of their peculiarities. It ought,
however, to be said that these primitive carvings or
scratchings are not often conspicuous, and generally
require some seeking. They are always on a small
scale of drawing, in nearly every instance within the
diminished curve of the most antiquated form, of
headstone (such as is shewn in the Frontispiece),
and as a rule they are overgrown with lichen, which
has to be rubbed off before the lines are visible.
It may safely be averred, on the other hand, that the
majority of the old stones when found of this shape
contain or have contained these remarkable figures,
and in some places, particularly in Kent, they

GRAVESTONES

literally swarm. There is a numerous assortment
of them at Meopham, a once remote hamlet, now a
station on the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway.
I have copied only one — an early attempt apparently
to produce a cherub resting with outstretched wings
upon a cloud, but there are a good many of the same
order to keep it in countenance.

Fig. 18.— AT MEOPHAM.

“ To Sarah Edmeades, died 1728, aged 35 years.”

In the churchyards of Hawkhurst, Benenden,
Bodiam, Cranbrook, Goudhurst, and all through the
Great Weald these incised stones are to be discovered
by hundreds, very much of one type perhaps, but
displaying nevertheless some extraordinary variations.
I know of no district so fruitful of these examples as
the Weald of Kent.

Even when the rude system of cutting into the
stone ceased to be practised and relief carving became
general, grossness of idea seems to have survived in
many rural parishes. One specimen is to be seen in
the churchyard of Stanstead in Kent, and is, for
relief work, childish.

Fig. 19.— AT STANSTEAD.

“ To William Lock, died 1751, aged 16 years.”

However, the vast number of gravestones carved in
relief are, on the whole, creditable, especially if we
consider the difficulty which met the workmen in
having to avoid giving to their crossbones and other
ornaments the appearance of horns growing out of
their skulls.

Fig. 18.

Meopham,

Stanstead.

Fig. 20.

Old Romney,

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Fig. 20.— AT OLD ROMNEY.

“ To William Dowll, died 1710, aged 40 years.”

The winged skull probably typifies flight above.

Fig. 21.— AT CRAYFORD.

“To John Farrington, died Dec. 8, 1717, aged
above fourty years.”

In the appropriate design from Shoreham the
same idea is better conveyed both by the winged
head and by the torch, which when elevated signifies
the rising sun, and when depressed the setting sun.
The trumpet in this case would seem to mean the
summons. The two little coffins are eloquent with¬
out words.

Fig. 22.— AT SHOREHAM.

“ The children of Thomas and Jane Stringer,
died Sept1’ 1754, aged 10 and 7 years.”

In Lewisham Churchyard is one of the death’s
head series almost mi generis.

Fig. 23.— AT LEWISHAM.

“To Richard Evens, died May 18, 1707, aged
67 years.”

The chaplet of bay-leaves or laurel doubtless indi¬
cates “Victory.” Not only is this an early and
well-accomplished effort, but it is remarkable for
the presence of a lower jaw, which is seldom seen
on a gravestone. The skull turned up by the sexton

GRAVESTONES

is usually tlie typical object, and to that we may
presume the nether jaw is not often attached. It is
found, however, on a headstone of a somewhat weak
design in Old Hornsey Churchyard.

Fig. 24.— AT HORNSEY.

“To M1' John Gibson, whipmaker, died Oct.

30, 1766, aged 44 years.”

The hand seems to be pointing to the record of a
well-spent life which has won the crown of glory.

There is another of the lower jaw series at
Teddington, which is also, in all probability, the
only instance of a man’s nightcap figuring in such
gruesome circumstances.

Fig. 25.— AT TEDDINGTON.

“To Sarah Lewis, died June 11, 1766, aged
63 years.”

The emblem of Death was quite early crowned
with laurel to signify glory, and associated with
foliage and flowers in token of the Resurrection.
One at Finchley is, for its years, well preserved.

Fig. 26.— AT FINCHLEY.

“To Richard Scarlett, died July 23, 1725.”

Another at Farnborough is, considering the date,
of exceptional merit.

Fig. 27.— AT FARNBOROUGH.

“ To Elizabeth Stow, died 1744, aged 75 years.”

Fig. 25.

Teddington.

Fig. 26.

Finchley.

Fig. 27.

Fabnborough.

Fig. 30.

West Wickham.

Fig. 31.

Hornsey.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

A few others of the skull pattern with various
additaments may conclude this chapter. The cup
in the Chiselhurst case is somewhat uncommon.

Fig. 28.— AT CHISELHURST.

Name obliterated; date Nov. 1786.

The conventional symbols in the next example are
clearly to be read.

Fig. 29.— AT HARTLEY.

“To Eliza Anderson, died 1771, aged 70 years.”

The West Wickham specimen has its prototype in
the old churchyard at Hackney, and in other places.

Fig. 30.— AT WEST WICKHAM.

“ To Richard Whiff en, died 1732, aged
3 years.”

In Fig. 31, from Hornsey, the two skulls present
the appearance of having been pitched up from
the grave.

Fig. 31.— AT HORNSEY.

“To William Fleetwood, died Jan. 30, 1750,
aged 15 months.”

GRAVESTONES

CHAPTER III.

ARTISTIC GRAVE STONE S .

In the later half of the eighteenth century greater
pains and finer workmanship appear to have keen
bestowed upon the symbolic figurement of the grave¬
stone^ and the more elaborate allegorical repre¬
sentations of which a few sketches have been given
came into vogue and grew in popular favour until
the century’s end. Nor did the opening of a new
century altogether abolish the fashion ; perhaps it
can hardly be said to have been abolished even now
at the century’s close, but the evidences extant
combine to shew that the flourishing period of the
pictorial headstone lay well within the twenty-five
years preceding Anno Domini 1800. Eor the sake
of comparison one with another, I have taken, in
addition to the sketch at page 1 (Pig. 1)* three
examples of the device which seems most frequently
to typify the resurrection of the dead. In two of
these the illustration is accompanied by a quotation
explanatory of its subject, but the words are not the
same in both cases. The stone at Horton Kirby,
near Hartford., depicted in Pig. 32, shews the inscrip¬
tion clearly.

Pig. 32.— AT HORTON KIRBY.

“ To John Davidge, died April 22, 1775, aged
75 years.”

Fig. 34.

Darenth.

Fig. 35.

Kingsdown.

OLD AND CTTEIOTIS.

In the second instance, at Cliffe, the inscription
has been in great part obliterated by time, bnt the
words written were evidently those of the chapter
from Corinthians which is part of the Burial Service :
“ 0 death, where is thy sting ? 0 grave, where is

thy victory ? 55 They are, however, almost illegible,
and I have made no attempt to reproduce them in
the picture.

Fig. 33.— AT CLIFFE.

“To Mary Jackson, died March 26, 1768.”

There is a second stone of similar pattern in Cliff e
Churchyard, dated 1790. It differs from the fore¬
going only in having the spear broken. The sculptor
of another specimen at Darenth, near Dartford,
thought the subject worthy of broader treatment,
and transferred it to a stone about double the
ordinary width, but did not vary the idea to any
great extent. Indeed, Horton Kirby and Darenth,
being next-door neighbours, have most features in
common ; the falling tower, which symbolizes the Day
of Judgment, appearing in both, while it is absent
from the more distant examples at Cliff e and New-
haven. The introduction of the omniscient eye in
the Cliffe case is, however, a stroke of genius com¬
pared with the conventional palm branches at Horton
Kirby, or the flight through mid-air of the tower-
tops both at Horton Kirby and at Darenth.

Fig. 34.— AT DARENTH.

“To John Millen, died June 11th, 1786, aged
82 years.”

GRAVESTONES

Outside the county of Kent I have met with nothing
of this pattern, and pictorial art on a similar scale is
seldom seen on the gravestones anywhere. Specimens
from Lee, Cheshunt, Stapleford Tawney, and else¬
where^ wil^ however, he seen in subsequent pages.

/ The day of joyful resurrection is prefigured possibly
in more acceptable shape in the next instance, no
imitation of which I have seen in any of my rambles.

Fig. 85.— AT KINGSDOWN.

“To Ann Charman, died 1793, aged 54 years.”

Ko one to whom I have shewn this sketch has
given a satisfactory interpretation of it* but it will
be allowed that the design is as graceful as it is
uncommon. That it also in all likelihood refers to
the Day of Judgment may perhaps be regarded as a
natural supposition.

^ Even the open or half-open coffin, shewing the
skeleton within, may possibly have some reference to
the rising at the Last Day. We have this figure
employed in a comparatively recent case at Fawk-
ham in Kent, being one example of nineteenth-
century sculpture.

Fig. 36.— AT FAWKHAM.

“Thomas Killick, died 1809, aged 1 month
1 day.”

r A crown is usually the emblem of Victory, but
held in the hand, as in this instance, it indicates, I
am told, an innocent life.

Other coffins displaying wholly or partly the corpse

^ or skeleton within are perhaps not intended to convey

. .. «

Ashfokb.

Fig. 38.

Fig. 39.

Cooling.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

any such pious or poetic thought as do the two fore¬
going, but simply to pourtray the ghastliness of
death, a kind of imagery much fancied by the old
stonemasons.

Fig. 37.— AT SWANSCOMBE.

“To Elizabeth Hall, died 1779, aged 76 years.55

Fig. 38.— AT ASHFORD.

“To Stephen Kennedy, died Sept. 1791, aged
61 years.55

In the latter illustration there are three stars to
which I can give no signification. The snake-ring is,
of course, eternity, and the book, as before surmised,
may stand for the record of a good life.

More ingenious, more didactic, and altogether
more meritorious than these is another series of
designs belonging to the same period of time. They
are not only as a rule conceived in better taste, but
are, almost consequently, better in their execution.
The following example from Cooling, a small village
in the Medway Marshes, is an excellent specimen of
its class, and a very exceptional “ find 55 for a spot so
remote.

Fig. 39.— AT COOLING.

“ To Mr Richard Prebble of Cliff e, died April
1775.55

One of later date at Hendon, Middlesex, is also to
he commended. The lyre, cornet, and tambourine
speak of music, and the figures of Fame and Hope are

GRAVESTONES

hardly to be misunderstood, but the large box in the
background is not quite certain of correct interpre¬
tation.

Fig. 40.— AT HENDON.

“To Ludwig August Leakfield, Esq., died
Nov. 22, 1810, aged 48 years.”

The following is rougher in form, hut seems to
have suffered from the weather. It needs no
explanation.

Fig. 41.— AT EAST WICKHAM.

“To Thomas Yere of Woolwich, shipwright,
died 10th August, 1789.”

The two next subjects are to be found in many
variations. The angel with the cross in each case
may represent salvation proclaimed.

Fig. 42.— AT SNARGATE.

“To Edward Wood, died Sept. 1779, aged
50 years.”

Fig. 43.— AT EAST HAM.

“To Mr Richard Wright, died July 28, 1781,
aged 39 years.”

The winged scroll in Fig. 44 is unfolded to display,
we may suppose, a register of good and holy deeds
done in an extended life. The scythes and the
reversed torches may be taken at their usual signifi¬
cance, which is death. This is copied from a stone
in the churchyard of Wilmington by Dartford Heath.

Fig. 40.

Hendon.

Fig. 41.

East Wickham,

OLD AND CURIOUS.

M 44.— AT WILMINGTON.

“ To Richard Harman, died 1 793_, aged 71 years.”

More elegant testimony is paid by the figure of a
winged urn in Wanstead Old Churchyard, the flame
which burns above indicating, it would seem, that
though the body be reduced to ashes, the soul
survives.

Fig. 45.— AT WANSTEAD.

“To William Cleverly, died 1780, aged
40 years.”

Eternity is usually, as we have seen, represented by
an endless ring — often as a serpent. It is so in the
Southfleet sketch, in which appear the two horns of
the archangels, and the living torch, with some other
objects which are not quite clearly defined.

Fig. 46.— AT SOUTHFLEET.

“To John Palmer, died 1781, aged 61 years.”

In another selection from Wilmington the winged
hour-glass may be read as the flight of time, the
cloud is probably the future life, and the bones below
convey their customary moral.

Fig. 47.— AT WILMINGTON.

“To Ann Parsons, died Nov. 3, 1777, aged
60 years.”

Sometimes, but not often, will be found engraved
on a stone the suggestive fancy of an axe laid at the

GRAVESTONES

foot of a tree, or some metaphorical figure to the
same intent. An instance occurs at Lewisham in
which the idea is conveyed by the pick and shovel
under a flourishing palm.

Fig. 48.— AT LEWISHAM.

“To Thomas Lambert, died Nov. 25, 1 781_,
aged 59 years.”

A symbol so simple and yet so significant as this
is scarcely to be surpassed. One almost in the same
category is the followings a small anaglyph in
Bunhill Fields Burial-ground, London.

Fig. 49.— AT BUNHILL FIELDS, LONDON.

“To Elizabeth Sharp, who died Oct. 20, 1752,
aged 31 years.”

It is easy to read in this illustration the parable of
death destroying a fruitful vine, and as a picture it
is not inelegant. It is more remarkable as being, so
far as I can find, the one solitary instance of an
allegorical gravestone among the thousands of grave¬
stones in the vast and carefully guarded burial-place
in the City Hoad. Strictly speaking, death’s heads
and crossbones are allegorical, but these must be
excepted for their very abundance and their lack of
novelty. Possibly, also, the lichen, damp, and London
climate, which have obliterated many of the inscrip¬
tions in this old cemetery, may have been fatal to the
low relief which is requisite for figure work of the
kind under consideration. But Bunhill Fields and
similar places in and near London and other great
towns have taught me the law to which I have already

OLD AND CURIOUS.

referred — the law that the picture-tombstone was
country bred, and could never have endured under
the modern conditions of life in or near the centres
of civilization.

There are exceptions, perhaps many, to this ruling,
as there are exceptions to every other. For instance,
a stone at the grave of a Royal Artillery Officer in
Woolwich Churchyard combines the emblems of his
earthly calling with those of his celestial aspirations in
a medley arrangement not unusual in rural scenes,
but hardly to be reconciled with the education and
refinement of a large garrison and school of military
science which Woolwich was in 1760. This must be
set down as one of the exceptions which prove the
rule.

Fig. 50.— AT WOOLWICH.

<f To Lieut. Thomas Sanders, late of the Royal
Regiment of Artillery, who died March
1760, aged 60 (P) years.”

There is a more recent case in which the same idea
is pourtrayed in somewhat different fashion on a head¬
stone in the obsolete graveyard of St. Oswald, near
the Barracks at York. It is dedicated to John Kay,
a private in the Royal Scots Greys, who died July 9,
1833, aged 34 years.

But, on the whole, it may be accepted as an axiom
that originality has shunned the town churchyards,
and the absence of curious varieties of the gravestone
among the well-sown acres of Bunhill Fields and
such-like places of the period at which they were by
comparison so abundant in less considered localities
admits of a simple explanation.

GRAVESTONES

In the eighteenth century town and country were
much more divided than they are now. London and
the rural districts were not on their present level.
Taste in art and in the ordinary affairs of life was
being cultivated in town ; it was not even encouraged
in the country. Education and refinement were not
thought to he desirable accomplishments in a rustic
population, hut dwellers in cities had been for
generations improving their manners, and thus it was
that no such provincial vulgarity as a decorated tomb¬
stone could he tolerated in the choice metropolis.

The clergy were always the masters in such
matters, and their influence is seen in many places,
even in the villages, in keeping the churchyard free
from ridicule; hut, broadly speaking, there is no
doubt that the rectors and vicars in London and
other large cities began quite a hundred years earlier
than those of the villages that control and supervision
over the carving and inscriptions on the tombstone
which is now the almost universal rule. It was
unquestionably the adoption of this practice by the
country parson, late in the eighteenth century or
early in the nineteenth century, that put an end
in rural places to the “ period 55 of illustrated epitaphs
which had long gone out of fashion, or, more likely,
had never come into being, among the busier hives of
humanity.

A rare variety of the cloud-and-angel series, which
are so frequent, is seen in Long field Churchyard on
the Maidstone Road. Trumpets of the speaking or
musical order are frequently introduced to typify the
summons to resurrection, hut here we have the
listener pourtrayed by the introduction of an ear-
trumpet.

Fig. 53.

Bermondsey.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Fig. 51.— AT LONGFIELD.

“ To Mary Davidge, died 1772, aged 69 years.”

Allegorical gravestones of recent date* that is of
the time which we call the present day, are very
seldom seen, and such as there are do not come
within the scope of this work. There is one in West
Wickham Churchyard devoted to a chorister, and
sculptured with a representation of the church organ-
pipes. Memorials to deceased Freemasons are per¬
haps the most frequent of late carvings, as in the
sketch from Lydd in the Romney Marsh district.

Fig. 52.— AT LYDD.

“To John Finn, died June 9th, 1813, aged
30 years.”

Occasionally, too, some plain device appears on even
a modern headstone, such as the following, which is
one of the few I have from the London area. The
graves of the same half-century may he searched with¬
out finding many carvings more ambitious than this.

Fig. 53.— AT ST. JAMES’S, BERMONDSEY.

“ To Charles Thomas Henry Evans, died 1849.”

Churchyards beside the Upper Thames are nearly
all prolific in old gravestones, the riparian settlements
having been well populated during the favourable
period. This is especially the case at Richmond and
Twickenham, hut of the great number of eighteenth-
century stones in both churchyards there are few
very remarkable. Richmond has a rare specimen of

GRAVESTONES

the full-relief skull. The death’s head has on either
side of it the head of an angel in half-relief . The
stone is a double one, and I have never met its fellow.

Fig. 54— AT RICHMOND.

u To Annie Smedley (?), died 1711, aged
90 years.”

As companions to this I present a pair of dwarf
stones with full-relief heads of seraphs and cherubs —
an agreeable change — from the same county.

Fig. 55.— AT RIPLEY.

“ To Sarah wife of Henry Bower, died 1741.

To Henry Bower, died March 23d, 1758.”

The Rector of the parish passed as I was sketching
these interesting objects, and was surprised to find
that he had anything so unusual in his churchyard.

Fig. 54.

Richmond.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTEE IY.

PEOFESSIONAL GEAYESTONES.

It is more than likely that somewhere will be
found a pictorial accompaniment to the verse which
has been often used as an epitaph for a village
blacksmith. I have met with the lines in two or
three versions, of which the followings copied in the
churchyard at Aberystwith, appears to be the most
complete :

“ My sledge and hammer lie reclined ;

My bellows too have lost their wind ;

My fire extinct, my forge decay’d,

And in the dust my vice is laid.

My coal is spent, my iron’s gone ;

My nails are drove, my worck is done.”

There are many instances in which the implements
of his craft are depicted upon an artizan’s tomb ;
these also for the most part being of the eighteenth
century. In the churchyard at Cobham, a village
made famous by the Posthumous Papers of the
Pickwick Clubs is a gravestone recording the death
of a carpenters having at the head a shield bearing
three compasses to serve as his crests and under it
the usual tools of his trade — squares mallets com-
passess wedge, saw, chisels hammers gimlets plane,
and two-foot rule.

Era. 56.— AT COBHAM, KENT.

“To Eichard Gransden, carpenter, died 13th
March, 1760.”

GRAVESTONES

This one may serve as a fair sample of all the
trade memorials to which carpenters have been,
before all classes of mechanics, the most prone.
The carvings bear the same strong resemblance to
each other that we find in other series of gravestones,
but have occasional variations, as in the following
specimen, which mixes np somewhat grotesquely the
emblems of death and eternity with the mundane
instruments of skill and labour, including therein
a coffin lid to shew maybe that the man, besides
being a carpenter, was also an undertaker.

Fig. 57.— AT BARNES.

“To Henry Mitchell, died 1724, aged 72 years.”

It was only to be expected that the prominent
agriculturists of rural districts would be figuratively
represented on their gravestones, and this will be
found to be the case in a number of instances. The
following illustration is from the churchyard of
Erindsbury, a short distance out of Rochester and
on the edge of the Medway meadows.

Fig. 58.— AT FRINDSBURY.

The inscription is effaced, but the date appears
to be 1751.

The overturned sheaf presumably refers meta¬
phorically to the fate of the farmer whom the stone
was set up to commemorate. The old-fashioned
plough is cut only in single profile, but is not an
ineffective emblem. I imagine that the ribbon above
the plough bore at one time some inscribed words
which time has obliterated.

Pig, 61.

Beckenham.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

The design invented by the sculptor at Sutton at
Hone, near Dartford, is less original and also less
striking.

Fig. 59.— AT SUTTON AT HONE.

“To Richard Northfield, died Oct. 19, 1767,
aged 71 years.”

In the case of John Bone, bricklayer, of Bromley,
Kent, it would probably be wrong to associate with
his calling the tools engraved on his headstone.
They were probably meant with the rest of the
picture to represent the emblems of mortality.

Fig. 60.— AT BROMLEY.

“To John Bone, Bricklayer, died Dec. 14,
1794, aged 48 years.”

There is, however, one stone which may be included
in the category of trade memorials, though its subject
was not a mechanic. Mr. John Cade was a school¬
master at Beckenham, and appears to have been
well liked by his pupils, who, when he prematurely
died, placed a complimentary epitaph over his grave.
The means by which he had imparted knowledge
are displayed upon the stone, and below are the
lines hereinafter set forth.

Fig. 61.— AT BECKENHAM.

“ To the memory of John Cade, of this parish,
schoolmaster. One skilled in his pro¬
fession and of extensive ingenuity. As
he lived universally beloved, so he died
as much lamented, August 28th, 1750, aged

GRAVESTONES

35 years. Several of his scholar s, moved
by affection and gratitude, at their own
expense erected this in remembrance of
his worth and merit.

“ Virtue, good nature, learning, all combined
To render him belov’d of human kind.”

Greenford, near Harrow-on-the-Hill, had quite
recently a worthy inhabitant who was a gardener
and presumably a beekeeper also. Accordingly a
beehive appropriately decorates his gravestone.

Fig. 62. — AT GREEHFORD.

“To William King, upwards of 60 years
gardener of this parish, died Dec. 16th,
1863, aged 84 years.”

The next problem is rather more doubtful, and in
considering the possibility of the memorial indicated
being “ professional,” we must remember that the
parish of West Ham, now a populous place, was
quite out of town and almost undiscovered until a
comparatively recent time. Its eighteenth-century
gravestones are consequently for the most part rustic
and primitive. The skull and other bones here
depicted, decked with wheat-ears and other vegeta¬
tion, probably have some literal reference to the
agricultural pursuits of the deceased, although of
course they may be only poetical allusions to the
life to come.

Fig. 63.— AT WEST HAM.

“To Andrew James, died 1754, aged 68 years.”

Fig. 62.

Greenford.

Fig. 63,

West Ham.

■

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER Y.

A TYPICAL TRAMP IN KENT.

This unpretentious work makes no claim to deal
with, the whole subject which it has presumed to
open. Its aim is rather to promote in others the
desire which actuates the author to follow up and
develop the new field of antiquarian research which
it has attempted to introduce. As old Weever says,
in his quaint style : — “ I have gained as much as I
have looke for if I shall draw others into this argu¬
ment whose inquisitive diligence and learning may
finde out more and amende mine.”

This hook, then, is not a treatise, but simply a first
collection of churchyard curiosities, the greater
number of which have been gathered within a com¬
paratively small radius. It is only the hoard of one
collector and the contents of one sketch-book, all
gleaned in about a hundred parishes. Many col¬
lectors may multiply by thousands these results,
bring out fresh features, and possibly points of high
importance.

Two chief purposes therefore animate my desire
to publish this work. One is to supply such little
information as I have gleaned on a subject which has
by some singular chance escaped especial recognition
from all the multitude of authors, antiquarians, and
literary men. I have searched the Museum libraries,
and consulted book-collectors, well-read archseologists,
and others likely to know if there is any work

d 2

GRAVESTONES

descriptive of old gravestones in existence, and
nothing with the remotest relation thereto can I dis¬
cover.* There are, of course, hundreds of books of
epitaphs, more or less apocryphal, but not one book,
apocryphal or otherwise, regarding the allegories of
the churchyard. Can it he that the subject is bereft
of interest? If so, I have made my venture in vain.
But I trust that it is not so.

The second object is to recommend to others a new
and delightful hobby, and possibly bring to hear upon
my theme an accumulation of knowledge and com¬
bination of light. Gravestone hunting implies long
walks in rural scenes, with all the expectations, none
of the risks, and few of the disappointments of other
pursuits. From ten to fifteen miles may he mapped
out for a fair day’s trudge, and will probably embrace
from three to six parish churchyards, allowing time
to inspect the church as well as its surroundings.
Saturdays are best for these excursions, for then the
pew-openers are dusting out the church, and the sex¬
ton is usually about, sweeping the paths or cutting
the grass. The church door will in most cases he
open, and you can get the guidance you want from
the best possible sources. A chat with the village
sexton is seldom uninviting, and he can generally
point out everything worth your observation. But
the faculty of finding that of which you are in search

# The Rev. Charles Boutell published, in 1849, parts 1 and 2 of a
periodical work entitled “ Christian Monuments in England and
Wales,” proposing to complete the same in five sections; the fifth to
treat of headstones and other churchyard memorials, with some
general observations on modern monuments. The two parts brought
the subject down to the fifteenth century, and were so ably written and
beautifully illustrated as to intensify our regret at the incompletion
of the task.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

will soon come to yon. In the first place, the new
portion of a churchyard — there is nearly always a
new portion — may be left on one side. You will
certainly find no ancient memorials there. In the
next place^ you may by a little observation pick out
the eighteenth-century stones by their shape; which
is as a rule much more ornamented and curvilinear
than those of later date. They may also be detected
very often by the roughness of their backs as well
as by their weather-beaten complexions; and with a
little experience and practice the student may guess
correctly within a few years the age of any particular
one seen even in the distance.

To tempt the reader therefore to take up the
study which I have found so pleasant; so healthful,
and so interesting; I now propose to place in order
the proceeds of a few of my ramble S; and shew how
much success the reader may also expect in similar
expeditions. His or her stock-in-trade should consist
of a good-sized note-book or sketch-book of paper
not too rough for fine lines, a B B pencil of reliable
quality; and a small piece of sandstone or brick to
be used in rubbing off the dirt and moss which
sometimes obscure inscriptions. No kind of scraper
should ever be employed; lest the crumbling memorial
be damaged ; but a bit of brick or soft stone will do
no harm; and will often bring to view letters and
figures which have apparently quite disappeared.
If a camera be taken; a carpenter’s pencil may be
of service in strengthening half-vanished lines; and
a folded foot-rule should always be in the pocket.
A mariner’s compass is sometimes useful in strange
places; but the eastward position of a church will
always give the bearings; and a native is usually to

GRAVESTONES

be found to point the way. A road map of the
county which you are about to explore, or, if in
the vicinity of London, one of those admirable and
well-known handbooks of the field paths, is useful,
and the journey should be carefully plotted out
before the start. A friend and companion of con¬
genial tastes adds, I need not say, to the enjoyment
of the excursion. My constant associate has happily
a craze for epitaphs, but does not fancy sketching
even in the rough style which answers well enough
for my work, and I have had therefore no competitor.
Together we have scoured all the northern part
of Kent and visited every Kentish church within
twenty miles of London. The railway also will
occasionally land us near some old church which
we may like to visit, and it was while waiting half
an hour for a train at Blackheath station that I
picked up the accompanying choice specimen in the
ancient burial-ground of Lee.

Fig. 64. — AT LEE.

“To Eliza Drayton, died 11th May, 1770.”

In this allegory Time appears to be commanding
Death to extinguish the lamp of Life. The sun
may mean the brighter life beyond. The building
to the right is an enigma.

Often the first six or seven miles have to be
encountered before we reach unexplored ground.
The Cray Valley, for instance, may be cited for one
day’s experience. First a walk of seven miles to
Orpington, one of the five sister churches of the
Crays — all said to be Anglo-Saxon and of about one
date. I must not digress to speak of churches, but

OLD AND CURIOUS.

it is only reasonable to suppose that the student
who is capable of taking up as a pastime the investi¬
gation of churchyards has previously acquired some¬
thing more or less of archseological taste, and will
not fail to notice the churches.* We reach the
churchyard of Orpington, visit the church, and then
my companion and I separate for our respective
duties. I am not fortunate in securing any special
prize, but it is well to select some object if only as
a souvenir of the visit, and I jot down the following,
which may be classed among the commonest order
of all figurative headstones, but is nevertheless
noticeable as a variant.

Fig. 65.— AT ORPINGTON, KENT.

“To Hosa Mansfield, daughter of John and
Martha Mansfield, died 24th May 1710,
aged 26 years. Also James Mansfield,
son of John and Martha Mansfield, died
30th Dec1' 1746, aged 48 years.”

The work in this instance is crude, and apparently
done by an inexpert craftsman. The stone is, how¬
ever, decayed, and it is possible that it is the
draughtsman who has blundered. The two skulls,
being of different sizes, suggest the male and female
occupants of the grave, and would therefore assign
the production to the later rather than the earlier
date. The two bones are not often found in so
lateral a position, and the vampire wings are clumsy
in the extreme. I have collected varieties of the
skull and crossbone character in many places, and

* There are several handbooks of church architecture, and the
rudiments of the various orders and dates are easily acquired.

GRAVESTONES

seen the eccentricities of many masons in the way
of wings, but have met with very few so far astray
as these. While I am engaged in transferring the
specimen to my book, onr epitaph hunter has been
round and discovered a treasure. I shall not trouble
the reader with him henceforth, but I may note just
this one of his successes as a sample of the rewards
which attend his part in the pilgrimage. He has
found a stone thus inscribed :

“ Here lyeth the body of Mary, the wife of
John Smith: she died March 17th, 1755,
aged 58 years.

“ Here lyeth Mary, never was contrary
To me nor her neighbours around her ;

Like Turtle and Dove we lived in love,

And I left her where I may find her.

“ Also John Smith, husband of the above.”

(Date sunk underground.)

A short walk through the village and by the Cray
River brings us to the church of St. Mary Cray,
where 1 secure a new species, in which Death is
doubly symbolized by the not infrequent scythe and
possibly also by the pierced heart. The latter might
refer to the bereaved survivor, but, being a-flame,
seems to lend itself more feasibly to the idea of
the immortal soul. The trumpet and the opening
coffin indicate perad venture the resurrection.

Fig. 66.— AT ST. MARY CRAY.

“To Thomas Abbott, died May 21, 1773, aged

75 years.”

v?’

Fig. 68.

Foot’s Ckay.

Fig. 69.

Bexley.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Only a short distance farther, for the churches are
small, we reach St. Paul’s Cray, the burial-ground
of which shews that the foregoing allegory was
immediately duplicated, apparently by another hand,
with just a little variation to redeem the piracy.
The coffin is quite opened and empty, instead of
being slightly open and tenanted, which is almost
the only difference between the May and the Sep¬
tember work.

Pm. 67.— AT ST. PAUL’S CEAY.

“To John Busbey, died 1st Sept1' 1773, aged
70 years.”

Foot’s Cray is a good long step beyond and does not
yield much profit, but I select the most novel speci¬
men, which is a combination of ordinary emblems,
with little attempt at symmetry, or even arrange¬
ment, other than the awkward juxtaposition of the
cherubins’ inner wings.

Fig. 68.— AT FOOT’S CEAY.

“ To Elizabeth Wood, died February 8, 1735-6,
aged 58 years.”

The churchyard at North Cray added nothing at
all to my collection. This was the only blank drawn
that day, but a beautifully kept ground surrounding a
delightful church well repaid the visit. A call at Old
Bexley Church completed the day’s work, and gave
me one of the few sketches belonging to the nine¬
teenth century which I have made.

GRAVESTONES

Fig. 69.— AT OLD BEXLEY.

“ To Susannah, wife of Henry Humphrey,
died 26th December 1805^ aged 57 years.”

The anchor stands for Hope^ the draped urn
signifies mourning for the dead, and the figure read¬
ing the Holy Book suggests consolation. From
Bexley Church to the railway station was hut a brief
space. The day’s tramp was ended.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER YI.

MORE TYPICAL TRAMPS.

How far comity divisions might affect the early
fashions in gravestones was one of my first questions,
and, having seen much of Kent, time was soon found
for a scamper through the country bordering Epping
Forest and along the backbone of Essex.

At Barking, just within the old Abbey gate, I came
upon an enigmatical illustration.

Fig. 70.— AT BARKING.

Inscription illegible. Date appears to be 1759.

The signification of the four balls I am unable to
suggest, unless they be connected in some way with
the planetary system and point man’s insignificance.
They appear to emanate from a cloud resting upon
the hour-glass, and may help the other emblems in
symbolizing time and eternity. The flickering candle
is also of doubtful interpretation. It may mean
the brevity of life ; it can hardly be needed, in
the presence of the skull, to indicate death. The
candle is sometimes employed alone, occasionally
extinguished. At Woolwich there is an instance in
which the candle is in the act of being put out.

GEAVESTONES

Fig. 71.— AT WOOLWICH.

“ To Siston Champion, died 27th Feb. 1749-50
(a few days after the birth of her child) ,
aged 28 years.”

The candle is indeed commonly used as a simile
of life’s uncertainty in all countries, and it may be
that where it is represented in a state of burning it
may be meant as a lesson on the number of our days.
It is seen with the skulls in the churchyard of St.
Nicholas, Deptford, and other places.

Fig. 72.— AT DEPTFORD.

“To William Firth, died 1724, aged 21 years.”

In West Ham Churchyard may be seen the figure
of the kissing cherubs rather prettily rendered, but
to be found in various forms in many places, and
always expressive of affection.

Fig. 78.— AT WEST HAM.

“ To Sarah Moore, died 1749.”

Wanstead Churchyard is remarkable for the
abundance and originality of its old gravestones.
Here is one (Fig. 74) which carries more distinctly
the fanciful idea suggested at West Ham (page 34,
Fig. 63) ; flowers and foliage, and even fruit, combining
with the lowered torch and summoning trumpet to
tell of life beyond the grave.

Fig. 74.— AT WANSTEAD.

“ To William Bosely, died 1712, aged 79.”

Pig. 74. Wanstead.

Fig. 75. Wanstead.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

There are several other variations of the same
symbol in the elegant enclosure at Wanstead Church ;
but the most remarkable of the old stones is one
which has at the top corners two projecting skulls,
the one facing nearly to the front and the other in
profile, both standing out in full relief, carefully and
accurately sculptured, but too ghastly to be beautiful.
This one, the Richmond example, and the two at
Ripley constitute my entire experience of full relief
work on a mere gravestone.

Fig. 75.— AT WANSTEAD.
u To William Swan, died 1715, aged 16 years.”

Other churchyards in the locality we found less
fruitful, and taking rail to Buckhurst Hill, we struck
across Epping Forest to Chingford, also without
profit, and walked on to Walthamstow, where
another of the enfoliated death’s-head pictures was
found ; the novelty being two skulls with ivy sprays,
symbolical of evergreen recollections.

Fig. 76.— AT WALTHAMSTOW.

“ To Jane Redfern, died 1734, aged 52 years.”

In the Broxbourne example on the same Plate
(Fig. 77) branches of oak, bearing leaves and acorns,
are used with good decorative effect on either side of
a porch in which is seated a mourning figure, but I
cannot undertake to explain the symbolical signifi¬
cance of the oak in sepulchral masonry.

Fig. 77.— AT BROXBOURNE.

“ To Mrs Rowe, widow, died 6 May 1798.”

GRAVESTONES

My excursions into Essex have been too limited
in scope to trace or test peculiarities in that county,
but I have found by observation in a number of
counties that, although there are occasional evidences
of local invention, or at least of local modification, in
certain districts, the same set of types which prevails
in one county serves pretty well for all the rest.

It is well therefore to guard against disappoint¬
ment. Pilgrimages like ours, having for their real
purpose healthy exercise and physical enjoyment, are
not to he counted failures when their ostensible
errand seems to have borne no result. It is necessary
for the pilgrim to be armed with some such reflec¬
tion as this against the shafts of discomfiture. There
have been occasions when, at the close of the day,
conscious as I might be of the pleasant hours past,
the freshened brain and the body reinvigorated, I
have yet covetously mourned the scanty and valueless
additions to my note-hook. Other pilgrims may
therefore take warning, he prepared for blank days
in barren coverts, and sully not their satisfaction
with regrets. But it will he a blank day indeed
which does not carry its pleasures with it and store
the mind with happy recollections. One walk on a
winter’s day over the hills from High Barnet to
Edgware I reckoned sadly unproductive of the special
novelties I sought, hut it afforded me the contemplation
of some landscapes which I can never forget, and it
printed on my brain a little jpajpier-machS- like church
at Totteridge which was worth going miles to see.
Better fortune next time should he the beacon of the
gentle tramp. The long jaunt I had from Chigwell
Lane Station through the pretty hut unpopulous
country west of Theydon Bois, uneventful as it was.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

made an ineffaceable mark on my memory. I picture
now the long and solitary walk across fields and
woodlands, with never a soul to tell tbe way for
miles and miles, crossing and recrossing the winding
Roden, startling the partridges from the turnips, and
surprising, at some sudden bend in the footpath, the
rabbits at their play. It is not without excitement
to steer one’s course over unknown and forsaken
ground by chart and compass. These needful guides
then prove their value, and in a hilly country an
altitude-barometer is a friend not to be despised.
It is not without some pride in one’s self-reliance
to find one’s self five miles from a railway station, as
I did at Stapleford Abbotts ; and, though my special
quest was all in vain at several halting-places that
day, I met with a Norman doorway at Lambourn
Church which archseologists would call a dream, the
axe-work of the old masons as clean cut and as perfect
as though it had been done last week ; and in taking
a near cut at a guess across country for Stapleford
Tawney I mind me that I lost my way, or thought I
had, but the mariner’s needle was true, and emerg¬
ing in a green avenue I saw before me a finger-post
marked “ To Tawney Church.” I took off my hat
and respectfully saluted that finger-post, and was
soon in the churchyard, where I haply lighted upon
one of the gems of my collection, the headstone
sculpture of “ The Good Samaritan.”

Fig. 78.— AT STAPLEFORD TAWNEY.

“To Richard Wright, died 3d March 1781,
aged 76 years.”

I have, however, an earlier study of the same sub¬
ject from the churchyard at Shorne Village, near

GRAVESTONES

Gravesend^ which is here given for comparison; and
I have seen two others at Cranbrook. They all
have some features alike; but there are differences
in the treatment of details in each case.

Fig. 79.— AT SHORNE.

“To Mary Layton, died Jan. 12; 1760; Joseph
Layton; died May 21; 1757 ; and Will.
Holmes; died Aug. 26; 1752.”

The stone at Shorne being close to the church
door is well known to the villagers; by whom it is
regarded as a curiosity. The schoolmaster was good
enough to give me a photograph from which my
sketch is made. But such rarities are seldom
esteemed by; or even known to, the inhabitants of a
place, and are passed by without heed by the constant
congregation of the church. At Stapleford Tawney,
just named, a native, the first I had seen for a mile
or two, stopped at the unwonted sight of a stranger
sketching in the churchyard, and I consulted him as
to application of the parable of the Good Samaritan
in the case under notice. His reply was that,
though he had lived there “ man and boy for fifty
year,” he had “ never see’d the thing afore.” He
condescended, however, to take an interest in my
explanations, and seemed to realize that it was worth
while to seek for objects of interest even in a church¬
yard. This was decidedly better than the behaviour
on another occasion of two rustics at Southfleet.
They had passed my friend jotting down an epitaph,
and the turn of a corner revealed me sketching a
tombstone, when one to the other exclaimed, “ Laud
sikes. Bill, if ’ere ain’t another on em !”

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER VII.

EARLIER GRAVESTONES.

Although memorials of the dead in one shape or
another have apparently existed in all eras of eth¬
nological history, it would seem that the upright
gravestone of onr burial-grounds has had a com¬
paratively brief existence of but a few hundred
years. This, however, is merely an inference based
on present evidences, and it may be erroneous. But
they cannot have existed in the precincts of the
early Christian churches of this country, because the
churches had no churchyards for several centuries.
The Romans introduced into Britain their Law of
the Ten Tables, by which it was ordained that “ all
burnings or burials 55 should be “ beyond the city,” *
and the system continued to prevail long after the
Roman evacuation. It was not until a.d. 742
that Cuthbert, eleventh Archbishop of Canterbury,
brought from Rome the newer custom of burying
around the churches, and was granted a Papal dis¬
pensation for the practice. The churchyards even
then were not enclosed, but it was usual to mark
their sacred character by erecting stone crosses,
many of which, or their remains, are still in
existence. Yet it was a long time before church¬
yard interments became general, the inhabitants

# The ancient Jewish burial-ground had to be no less than 2000
cubits (or about a mile) from the Levitical city.

GRAVESTONES

clinging to the Pagan habit of indiscriminate burial
in their accustomed places. We hear nothing of
headstones in the early days of Christianity, hut
there are occasionally found in certain localities
inscribed stones which hear the appearance of rude
memorials, and these have been regarded as relics
of our National Church in its primitive state. It is
also suggested that these stones may he of Druidical
origin, but there is nothing to support the theory.
Among the aboriginal Britons the custom of simple
inhumation was probably prevalent, but there are
not wanting evidences in support of the belief that
cremation also was sometimes practised in prehistoric
times. An instance of early interment was dis¬
covered in a tumulus at Gusthorp, near Scarborough,
in 1834. In a rude coffin scooped out of the trunk
of an oak-tree lay a human skeleton, which had
been wrapped or clothed in the skin of some wild
animal, fastened at the breast with a pin or skewer
of wood. In the coffin were also a bronze spearhead
and several weapons of flint — facts which all go to
establish a remote date. The absence of pottery
is also indicative of a very early period. Regarding
the skins, however, it may he remarked that Caesar
says of the Britons, when he invaded the island, that
“the greater part within the country go clad in
skins.”

Christian burials, as we have seen, cannot he dated
in England earlier than the eighth century, and
monuments at the grave may have possibly origin¬
ated about the same period, hut there is nothing
whatever to sustain such a belief, and we cannot
assign the earliest of existing memorials to a time
prior to the eleventh century. Indeed it is very

OLD AND CURIOUS.

significant to find that the tombs within the churches
are only a trifle older than the gravestones outside,
scarcely any of them being antecedent to the six¬
teenth century. As burials inside churches were not
permitted until long after the churchyards were
used for the purpose,* it is indeed possible that no
memorials were placed in the edifice until Tudor
days ; but this is scarcely feasible, and the more
probable explanation is that all the earlier ones have
disappeared. Those which can boast an antiquity
greater than that of the common gravestone are very
few indeed. It might have been supposed that the
sculptured shrine under the roof of the sanctuary,
reverently tended and jealously watched, might have
stood for a thousand years, while the poor grave¬
stone out in the churchyard, exposed to all weathers
and many kinds of danger, would waste away or
meet with one of the ordinary fates which attend
ill-usage, indifference, or neglect. This indeed
has happened in a multitude of places. Who has
not seen in ancient churchyards the headstones
leaning this way and that, tottering to their fall?
Are there not hundreds of proofs that the unclaimed
stones have been used, and still serve, for the floors

* The unhealthy practice of using churches for this purpose was
continued some way into the nineteenth century. The still more
objectionable plan of depositing coffins containing the dead in vaults
under churches still lingers on. In 1875 I attended the funeral (so-
called) of a public man, whose coffin was borne into the vaults of a town
church, and left there, with scores of others piled in heaps in recesses
which looked like wine-cellars. Not one of the many mourners who
shared in that experience failed to feel horrified at the thought of
such a fate. Some of the old coffins were tumbling to pieces, and the
odour of the place was beyond description. In the words of Edmund
Burke : “ I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a country
churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.”

E 2

GRAVESTONES

of the churches, and actually for the paving of the
churchyard paths ? It was not thought strange,
even within the memory of the present generation,
to advertise for owners of old graves, with an inti¬
mation that on a certain date the stones would be
removed ; and vast numbers of them were thus got
rid of — broken up perhaps to mend the roads. But
still greater perils have been survived by the earlier
of those memorials which remain to us, both without
and within the churches. The dissolution of the
Papal power in Great Britain was the cause of one
of these hazards ; for, towards the latter end of
Henry VIII. ’s reign, likewise during the reign of
Edward VI., and again in the beginning of Eliza¬
beth’s, commissioners in every county were vested
with authority to destroy “ all graven images ” and
everything which seemed to savour of “ idolatry and
superstition.” Under colour of this order, these
persons, and those who sympathized in their work,
gave vent to their zeal in many excesses, battering
down and breaking up everything of an ornamental
or sculptured character, including tombs and even
the stained windows. Moreover we are told by
Weever* that the commission was made the excuse
for digging up coffins in the hope of finding treasure.
Elizabeth soon perceived the evil that was being
done by the barbarous rage and greediness of her
subjects, and issued a proclamation under her own
hand restraining all “ ignorant, malicious, and
covetous persons ” from breaking and defacing any
monument, tomb, or grave, under penalty of fine
or imprisonment. This checked, but did not wholly
cure, the mischief ; and, although in her fourteenth
* Weever’s “ Funeral Monuments,” a.d. 1631.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

year of sovereignty she issued another and sterner
edict on the subject, the havoc was perpetuated
chiefly by a sect or party whom Weever describes
as “a contagious brood of scismaticks,” whose object
was not only to rob the churches, but to level them
with the ground, as places polluted by all the abomi¬
nations of Babylon. These people were variously
known as Brownists, Barrowists, Martinists, Pro-
phesyers, Solisidians, Pamelists, Rigid Precisians,
Disciplinarians, and Judaical Thraskists. Some who
overstepped the mark paid the penalty with their
lives. One man, named Hachet, not content with
destroying gravestones and statuary, thrust an iron
weapon through a picture of the Queen, and he was
hanged and quartered. Another, John Penry, a
Welshman, was executed in 1593, and of him was
written :

“ The Welshman is hanged
Who at our kirke flanged
And at her state hanged,

And brened are his buks.

And though he be hanged
Yet he is not wranged,

The de’ul has him fanged
In his kruked kluks.”

And there was a danger to be encountered far
later than that which was due to the anti- Popery
zealots of the Tudor dynasty. On the introduction
of the Commonwealth there arose such a crusade
against all forms and emblems of doctrinal import
as to affect not only the ornaments of the churches,
but the gravestones in the churchyards, many of
which were removed and put to other uses or sold.
The Puritans, as is well known, went to the
extremity of abolishing all ceremony whatever at

GRAVESTONES

the Burial of the Dead.* The beautiful Service in
the Book of Common Prayer, now used more or less
by all the Reformed Christian denominations of
England, was abolished by Parliament in 1 645— -that
and the Prayer Book together at one stroke. In
lieu of the Prayer Book a “ Directory ” was issued
on the conduct of public worship, in which it was
said :

“ Concerning Burial of the Dead, all customs of
praying, reading, and singing, both in going to or
from the grave, are said to have been greatly abused.
The simple direction is therefore given, that when
any person departeth this life, let the body upon the
day of burial be decently attended from the house to
the place appointed for public burial, and there
immediately interred without any ceremony.”

Penalties were at the same time imposed for using
the Book of Common Prayer in any place of worship
or in any private family within the kingdom — the
fine being £5 for a first offence, £10 for a second,
and a year’s imprisonment for the third.

The Puritans, however, are to be thanked for
stopping the then common practice of holding wakes
and fairs in the churchyards — a practice traceable
no doubt to the celebration of Saints’ Days in the
churches, and for that reason suppressed as remnants
of Popery in 1627-31.

It need not be said that the Burial Service and
the Prayer Book came back with the Restoration,
but the discontinuance of fairs in churchyards seems
to have been permanent. Many instances, however,

* There does not appear to have been any form of prayer for the
dead prior to the issue of GaskelPs “ Prymer ” in 1400. The Service
now in use dates from 1611.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

have occurred in later years of desecration by pas¬
turing cattle in the churchyards,* and offences of
this nature have been so recent that the practice
cannot be said with confidence to have even now
entirely ceased. But we return to the gravestones.

From one cause or another it is pretty certain
that for every old gravestone now to be seen twenty
or more have disappeared.

In Gough’s “ Sepulchral Monuments of Great
Britain” many instances are given of the wanton
and wholesale destruction of church and churchyard
memorials, even late in the eighteenth century. In
some cases the church officers, as already stated, gave
public notice prior to removal of gravestones, in
order that persons claiming an interest in the re¬
mains might repair and restore them; but more
frequently the stones were cleared away and de¬
stroyed, or put somewhere out of sight without
observation. Sometimes this was the act of the
Rector ; at other times individuals, exercising rights
of ownership, have done the disgraceful work, and
occasionally the whole of the parishioners have been
implicated. Gough says that the inhabitants of
Letheringham in Suffolk, being under the necessity
of putting their church into decent order, chose to
rebuild it, and sold the whole fabric, monuments and
all, to the building contractor, who beat the stones to
powder, and sold as much at three shillings a pound
for terrace (?) as came to eighty guineas. A portion
of the fragments was rescued by the Rev. Mr.
Clubbe, and erected in form of a pyramid in the

* At the Archbishop’s Court at Colchester in 1540 it was reported
that at a certain church “ the hogs root up the graves and beasts lie in
the porch.”

GRAVESTONES

vicarage garden of Brandeston, in the same county,
with this inscription :

Indignant Reader !

These monumental remains are not, as thou
mayest suppose, the
Ruins of Time,

But were destroyed in an
Irruption of the Goths
So late in the Christian era as 1789.
Credite Posteri !

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER VIII.

REFORM AMONG THE GRAVESTONES.

That the state of the old churchyards in this
country, down to the middle of the nineteenth
century, was a public scandal and disgrace, is a
remark which applies especially to London, where
burial-grounds, packed full of human remains, were
still made available for interments on a large scale
until 1850 or later. The fact was the more dis¬
creditable in contrast with the known example of
Paris, which had, as early as 1765, closed all the
city graveyards, and established cemeteries beyond
the suburbs. One of the laws passed at the same
time by the Parliament of Paris directed that the
graves in the cemeteries should not be marked with
stones, and that all epitaphs and inscriptions should
be placed on the walls, a regulation which appears to
have been greatly honoured in the breach. In 1776
Louis XVI., recognizing the benefit which Paris had
derived from the city decree, prohibited graveyards
in all the cities and towns of France, and rendered
unlawful interments in churches and chapels ; and
in 1790 the National Assembly passed an Act com¬
manding that all the old burial-grounds, even in the
villages, should be closed, and others provided at a
distance from habitations.* Other States of Europe

* In France in 1782-3, in order to check the pestilence, the remains
of more than six millions of people were disinterred from the urban
churchyards and reburied far away from the dwelling-places. The
Cemetery of Pere la Chaise was a later creation, having been con¬
secrated in 1804.

GRAVESTONES

took pattern by these enlightened proceedings, and
America was not slow in making laws upon the sub¬
ject; but Great Britain, and its worst offender, Lon¬
don, went on in the old way, without let or hindrance,
until 1850, For fifteen years prior to that date there
had been in progress an agitation against the exist¬
ing order of things, led by Dr. G. A. Walker, a
Drury Lane surgeon, living in a very nest of church¬
yard fevers, who wrote a book and several pamphlets,
delivered public lectures, and raised a discussion in the
public press. The London City Corporation petitioned
Parliament in 1842 for the abolition of burials within
the City, and a Select Committee of the House of
Commons was at once entrusted with an enquiry on
the subject.

The following were the official figures shewing the
burials in the London district* from 1741 to 1837,
and it was asserted that many surreptitious inter-

ments were unrecorded :

From 1741 to 1765

588,523

„ 1766 to 1792

605,832

„ 1793 to 1813

402,595

„ 1814 to 1837

508,162

Total

. 2,105,112

In the same year (1842) a "Report was presented to
Parliament by the Select Committee on aThe Improve¬
ment of the Health of Towns,” and especially on
“ The Effect of the Interment of Bodies in Towns.”
Its purport may be summed up in the following
quotation :

“ The evidence .... gives a loathsome picture of
the unseemly and demoralizing practices which

* London was much increased in area by the passing of Sir Benja¬
min Hall’s “ Metropolis Local Management Act of 1849.”

OLD AND CURIOUS.

result from the crowded condition of the existing
graveyards — practices which could scarcely have been
thought possible in the present state of society ....
We cannot arrive at any other conclusion than that
the nuisance of interments in great towns and the
injury arising to the health of the community are
fully proved.”

Among the witnesses examined were Sir Benjamin
Brodie and Dr. G. R. Williams.

In 1846 a Bill was prepared to deal with the matter,
but it was not until 1850 that an Act was passed
“ To make better provision for the Interment of the
Dead in and near the Metropolis.” Powers were
conferred upon the General Board of Health to
establish cemeteries or enlarge burial-grounds, and
an Order in Council was made sufficient for closing
any of the old churchyards either wholly or with
exceptions to be stipulated in the order. One
month’s notice was all that was needed to set the
Act in operation, and in urgent cases seven days ; but
it was found necessary in 1851 to pass another Act
for the purpose of raising funds; and in 1852 a more
stringent Act was put upon the Statute Book to deal
summarily with the churchyards. This was, in the
the following session, extended to England and
Wales, the General Board of Health having reported
strongly in favour of a scheme for “ Extra-mural
Sepulture ” in the country towns, declaring that the
graveyards of these places were in no better condition
than those of London.

Consequently, in the years which followed 1850, a
general closing of churchyards took place throughout
the Metropolis, and to a lesser extent throughout the
kingdom, and an active crusade against all similar

GEAVESTONES

burial-grounds was instituted, which may be said to
be still in operation. The substitution of new
cemeteries in remote and mostly picturesque places
was of immediate advantage in many ways, but it
did little or nothing to remedy the dilapidated
appearance of the old graveyards, which indeed, now
that they brought in no revenues, became in many
cases painfully neglected, dejected, and forlorn. Hap¬
pily, in 1883, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Associa¬
tion was established, and its influence has been very
marked in the improvement of the old enclosures and
their conversion into recreation grounds. The Metro¬
politan Board of Works, the London County Council,
the City Corporation, public vestries, and private per¬
sons, have shared in the good work, but the chief in¬
strument has been the Public Gardens Association.

Of old burial-grounds now open as public gardens in
the London district there are more than a hundred.
Care is always taken to preserve the sacred soil from
profane uses, games being prohibited, and the improve¬
ments confined to paths and seats, levelling the
ground and planting with trees and flowers. The
gravestones, though removed to the sides of the
enclosure, are numbered and scheduled, and all in
which any living person can claim an interest are left
untouched. No stones are ever destroyed in the pro¬
cess of reformation, but previous ill-usage and natural
decay have rendered very many of them illegible, and
in another century or so all these once fond memorials
will probably have become blank and mute.

To the middle of the nineteenth century may also
be assigned the change which we now see in the
character of our gravestones. Quite in the beginning
of the century the vulgar and grotesque carvings and

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Scriptural barbarisms of the eighteenth century bad
given place to a simple form of memorial in which it
was rare to find the least effort at ornament ; but, as
soon as the Burial Acts were passed and the old
churchyards were succeeded by the new cemeteries,
the tasteful and elegant designs which are to be seen
in every modern burial-ground were introduced,
founded in great measure upon the artistic drawings
of Mr. D. A. Clarkson, whose manifold suggestions,
published in 1852, are still held in the highest
admiration.

GRAVESTONES

CHAPTEE IX.

PEE SEE YIN G THE GEAYESTONES.

Mankind in all ages and in all places lias recognized
the sanctity of the burial-place. Among the New
Zealanders, when they were first revealed to Europeans
as savages, the place of interment was tajou, or holy.
The wild and warlike Afghanistans have also a
profound reverence for their burial-grounds, which
they speak of expressively as “ cities of the silent.”
Among the Turks the utmost possible respect is paid
to the resting-places of the dead, and nowhere,
perhaps (says Mrs. Stone in “ God’s Acre ”), are the
burial-places so beautiful. The great and increasing
size of Turkish cemeteries is due to the repugnance
of the people to disturbing the soil where once a
body has been laid. The Chinese and the inhabitants
of the Sunda Isles (says the authority just quoted)
seem to vie with each other in the reverence with
which they regard the burial-places of their ancestors,
which almost invariably occupy the most beautiful
and sequestered sites. The graves are usually over¬
grown with long grasses and luxuriantly flowering
plants. In like manner the Moors have a particular
shrub which overspreads their graves, and no one is
permitted to pluck a leaf or a blossom.

The simple Breton people are deeply religious, and
their veneration for the dead is intense. They are
frequently to be seen — men, women, and children —
kneeling on the ground in their churchyards, praying

OLD AND CURIOUS.

among the graves. It may therefore he well
believed that in the period of burial reform which
overspread the Continent in the earlier part of the
nineteenth century there was great opposition in
Brittany to the establishment of remote cemeteries.
The thought of burying elsewhere than in the parish
churchyard was to the minds of the parishioners a
species of impiety. When reasoned with they would
answer :

“Our fathers were buried here, and you would
separate us from our dead. Let us be buried here,
where our kinsfolk can see our graves from their
windows, and the children can come at evening to
pray.”

In vain they were shewn the danger of accumulating
corpses in a place which was usually in the centre of
the population. They shook their heads and cried :

“ Death comes only by the will of God.”

Possibly, to some extent, this feeling is universal
among mankind. There is in our hearts an innate
reverence for the burial-place ; we tread by instinct
lightly over the sleeping-places of the dead, and look
with silent awe upon their tombs. The feeling being
part of our humanity, we might suppose it to be
universal, and be apt to conclude that, in our more
primitive churchyards at least, we should find some
effort to preserve the whole or a large proportion of
the memorials which are there dedicated to departed
merit, hallowed by love and made sacred by sorrow.
But it may truthfully be said that of all the head¬
stones (not to speak alone of decorated headstones)
which were set up prior to the beginning of the
nineteenth century, by far the greater number have
disappeared ! Indeed the cases in which the old

GRAVESTONES

churchyards have been the objects of any care what¬
ever are lamentably few, while attempts to preserve
the old gravestones are almost unknown. The
ordinary experience is to find the churchyard more
or less neglected and forgotten, and the grey and
aged stones either sinking into the earth or tottering
to their fall. It cannot be imagined that the clergy,
the wardens, and the sextons have failed to see these
things ; but they have, presumedly, more pressing
matters to attend to, and it seems to be nobody’s
business to attend to such ownerless and worthless
objects.

Some gravediggers will tell you that the natural
destiny of the gravestone is the grave ! They will
shew you the old fellows slowly descending into the
ground, and they have heard the parson say perhaps
that the “ trembling of the earth” will in time
shake them all inevitably out of sight. I have heard
it mentioned as an article of belief among sextons
that a hundred years is the fair measure of a head¬
stone’s “life” above ground, but this reckoning is
much too short for the evidences, and makes no
allowance for variable circumstances. In some
places, Keston for instance, the church is founded
upon a bed of chalk, and out of the chalk the graves
are laboriously hewn. It is obvious therefore that
the nature of the soil, as it is yielding or impervious,
must be a prime factor in the question of survival. It
may be granted, however, that our progenitors in
selecting their burial-grounds had the same preference
for a suitable site as we have in our own day, and,
notwithstanding exceptions which seem to shew that
the church and not the churchyard was the one thing
thought of, the law of a light soil for interments is

Pig. 80

Pig. 81. Plumstead.

SINKING GRAVESTONES,

OLD AND CURIOUS.

sufficiently regular to give us an average duration of
a gravestone’s natural existence. The term “ natural ”
will apply neither to those fortunate ones whose lives
are studiously prolonged, nor of course to the
majority whose career is wilfully, negligently, or
accidentally shortened. But that, under ordinary
circumstances, the stones gradually sink out of sight,
and at a certain rate of progression, is beyond a
doubt. Two illustrations may help the realization of
this fact, such as may be seen in hundreds of our
churchyards.

The sketch of Bethnal Green (Fig. 80) was made
just as the churchyard was about to undergo a
healthy conversion, and it marks a very long period
of inaction.

The Plumstead case (Fig. 81), though less extreme,
is even more informing, as it seems to measure the
rate at which the disappearance goes on ; the dates
on the three stones coinciding accurately with their
comparative depths in the ground. Whether the
motion of the earth has any influence in this
connection need not now be discussed, because the
burying of the gravestones may be accounted for in
a simple and feasible manner, without recourse to
scientific argument. It is undoubtedly the burrowing
of the worms, coupled with the wasting action of rain
and frost, which causes the phenomenon. Instead,
however, of the sexton’s supposititious century, the
period required for total disappearance may more
accurately be regarded as from 200 to 250 years.
It has been found by careful observation in a few
random cases that the stones subside at the rate of
about one foot in forty or fifty years, and, as their
ordinary height is from 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches, we

GRAVESTONES

can readily tell, providing the rate rules evenly, the
date when any particular stone may he expected to
vanish. In confirmation of this theory is the fact
that scarcely any headstones are discoverable of a
date earlier than 1650,, and whenever they have been
left to their fate the veterans of 150 years have
scarcely more than their heads above gronnd. Where-
ever we find otherwise,, it may be assumed that
conscientious church officers or pious parishioners
have bethought them of the burial-ground, lifted up
the old stones and set them once more on their feet.

Of recent years there has grown up and been
fostered a better feeling for the ancient churchyards,
and the ivy-clad churches of Hornsey and Hendon
may be cited as examples familiar to Londoners in
which the taste engendered by a beautiful edifice has
influenced for good its surroundings. In both
churchyards are many eighteenth-century stones in
excellent preservation. Neither place, however, has
yet been “ restored 55 or “reformed 55 in the modern
sense, and there is no reason why it should be. In
many places, as the town grows and spreads, it is well
to convert the ancient graveyard into a public garden,
so that it be decently and reverently done. But this
ought never to be undertaken needlessly or heedlessly.
There are scruples of individuals to be regarded, and
a strong case ought always to exist before putting
into effect such a radical change. But it usually
happens that transformation is the only remedy, and
nothing short of a thorough reaction will rescue God’s
Acre from the ruin and contempt into which it has
fallen. Yet we should ever remember that, whatever
we may do to the surface, it is still the place where
our dead fathers rest.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

“ Earth to earth and dust to dust,

Here lie the evil and the just.

Here the youthful and the old,

Here the fearful and the bold,

Here the matron and the maid,

In one silent bed are laid.”

The utilitarian impulse, though frequently blamed
for the “ desecration ” of our churchyards, is really
less accountable for these conversions than the
culpable neglect which in too many cases has forced
the only measure of correction. Therefore they
who would keep the sacred soil unmolested should
take heed that it be properly maintained. A church¬
yard is in hopeful case when we see the mounds
carefully levelled, the stones set up in serried ranks,
and the turf between rolled smooth and trimmed and
swept. There is no outrage in levelling the ground.
The Christian feeling which clings to the grave, and
even to the gravestone, does not attach to the mound
of earth which is wrongly called the grave. This
mound is not even a Christian symbol. It is a mere
survival of Paganism, being a small copy of the
barrow or tumulus, of which we have specimens still
standing in various parts of our islands and the
Continent, to mark the sepulchres of prehistoric and
possibly savage chieftains. No compunction should
be, and probably none is, suffered when we remove
the grave-mounds, which is indeed the first essential
to the protection and beautification of an obsolete
burial-place. But, if possible, let the churchyard
remain a churchyard ; for, of all the several methods
which are usually resorted to for “preservation,” the
best from the sentimental view is that which keeps
the nearest to the first intent. There can be no
disputing that a churchyard is in its true aspect when

f 2

GRAVESTONES

it looks like a churchyard, providing it he duly cared
for. Some persons of practical ideas will, however,
favour such improvements as will banish the least
elegant features of the place and range the more
sightly ones midst lawns and flowers ; while others,
still more thorough, will be satisfied with nothing
short of sweeping away all traces of the graves, and
transforming the whole space at one stroke into a
public playground. The choice of systems is in some
degree a question of environment. Wherever open
ground is needed for the health and enjoyment of
dwellers in towns, it is now generally conceded that,
with certain reservations and under reasonable con¬
ditions, disused churchyards — especially such as are
neglected and deformed — shall in all possible cases
be transferred from the closed ledger of the dead to
the current account of the living.

The following lines, which were written upon the
restoration of Cheltenham Churchyard, maybe applied
to most of such instances :

“ Sleep on, ye dead !

’Tis no rude hand disturbs your resting-place ;
But those who love the spot have come at length
To beautify your long-neglected homes.

How loud ye have been speaking to us all !

But the mammon and the fading pleasures
Of this busy world hath made us deaf.

* * * Forgive the past !
Henceforth flowers shall bloom upon the surface
Of your dwellings. The lilac in the spring
Shall blossom, and the sweet briar shall exhale
Its fragrant smell. E’en the drooping fuchsia
Shall not be wanting to adorn your tombs ;

While the weeping willow, pointing downwards,
Speaks significantly to the living,

That a grave awaits us all.”

Cheshunt.

Fig. 82.

Fig. 83. Hatfield.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

But in rural spots, where there is abundance of
room and almost superfluity of nature, a well-kept
churchyard, with all its venerable features, studiously
protected and reverently cared for, is one of the best
inheritances of a country life. Illustrations of this
may occur to most observers, but as a case in point I
may refer to Cheshunt, on the borders of Hertford¬
shire. Some distance from the town-fringed high¬
way, the village church, ancient and picturesque,
stands amidst its many generations of people — living
and dead — hard by a little street of old-world cottages.
The spot and its surroundings are beautiful, and the
churchyard alone gives proof that the locality has
been under the influence of culture from generation
to generation. In few places are there so many and
such artistic specimens of allegorical carvings on the
headstones. The usual experience is to find one or
two, seldom more than a dozen, of these inven¬
tions worth notice, and only in rare instances to
light upon anything of the kind distinctly unique ;
but at Cheshunt there are more than a hundred
varieties of sculptured design and workmanship, all
the stones standing at the proper angle, and all in
good condition.

Fig. 82.— AT CHESHUNT.

“To Mary Lee, died July, 1779, aged 49 years.”

In the illustration I selected at Cheshunt the left
half of the picture appears to denote Life and the
right half Death. In the former are the vigorous
tree, the towers and fortresses, the plans and work¬
ing implements of an active existence. In the latter
the withered tree, with the usual emblems of death

GRAVESTONES

and eternity, emphasizes the state beyond the grave,

and in the centre are mushrooms, probably to point
the lesson of the new life out of decay.

Hatfield is another instance of preservation with¬
out change, none of the old stones having, so far as
one can judge, been allowed to sink into the earth,
nor, as is too often the case, to heel over, to be then
broken up, carted away, or put to pave the church and
churchyard. There is quite a collection of primitive
and diminutive headstones, carefully ranged against
the south wall of Hatfield Church, dating from 1 687 to
1700; and the specimens of carving in the older parts
of the churchyard are of great number and many
designs. The one which appears in the sketch
(Fig. 83) is curious by reason of the peculiar decora¬
tion which fringes the upper edge of the stone. It
is somewhat worn away, and I cannot discover
whether the ornament was intended for some sort of
aigrette, or, which it closely resembles at the present
time, a string of skulls.

Fig. 83.- AT HATFIELD.

“To the wife of John Malsty (?), died 1713.”

There appears here, as elsewhere, to have been a
tendency at times to repeat unduly such familiar
figures as the open book, but, as a whole, Hatfield
is a good example of a country churchyard. There
are many other old burial-grounds thoughtfully kept
in as good, or even better, order than the two
here quoted ; but it is for the respect shewn to the
ancient memorials of the village fathers, rather than
the churchyards themselves, that I have ventured to

Pig. 84.

Northolt.

Pig. 85.

Twickenham.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

select them as patterns for imitation. There is
another curious border on a stone in the secluded
but well-kept country churchyard of Northolt,
Middlesex.

Fig. 84.— AT NORTHOLT.

“To William Cob, died 25th September 1709,
aged 68 years.”

Twickenham, in the same county, but now grown
into a town, has modified its churchyard to its needs,
without much change, and I give it a sketch in
recognition of a sufficient and not excessive well¬
doing. Neither of these two examples call for other
remark, being of simple interpretation.

Fig. 85. — AT TWICKENHAM.

“To Elizabeth (?) Haynes, died 1741, aged
35 years.”

But while we find the few to be commended, what
a common experience it is, on the other hand, to come
upon a neglected churchyard ; the crippled stones
bending at all angles, many of them cracked, chipped,
and otherwise disfigured, and the majority half
hidden in rank weeds and grass. In some places,
owing to climatic conditions, moss or lichen has
effaced every sign of inscription or ornament from
the old stones ; and there are localities which appear
to he really unfortunate in their inability to resist
the destructive influence of the weather upon their
tombs, which, perhaps because they are of unsuitable
material, go to decay in, comparatively speaking, a
few years. As a rule, however, these relics of our

GRAVESTONES

ancestors need not and ought not to prematurely
perish and disappear from the face of the earth.
Where the graveyard is still used as a place of inter¬
ment, or remains as it was when closed against
interments,, the sexton or a labourer should have it
in perpetual care. The grass and weeds should be
kept in constant check, and the tombs of all kinds
preserved at the proper perpendicular. If not too
much to ask, the application of a little soap and
water at long intervals might be recommended in
particular instances ; but all such details depend upon
circumstances, and may be left to the individual
judgment. Provided there is the disposition, there
will always be found the way and the means to make
the holy ground a decent and a pleasant place.

Eeverence for the dead, especially among their
known descendants, will generally operate as a check
upon hasty or extravagant “ improvements,” and it
may be expected that those responsible for the
administration of local affairs will, for the most part,
when they set about the beautification of their
churchyard, decide to do what is necessary with no
needless alterations. This plan of preservation, as
already intimated, is probably the most desirable.
But we know instances, especially in and around Lon¬
don, where good work has been done by judiciously
thinning out the crop of tombstones, clearing away
the least presentable features of the place, and
making the ground prim with flower-beds and borders.
To do this much, and to introduce a few seats, will
leave the graveyard still a graveyard in the old
sense, and requires no authority outside the church.
It may be prudent to take a vote of the Vestry on
the subject as a defence against irate parishioners,

OLD AND CURIOUS.

but; if nothing be done beyond a decorous renova¬
tion of the burial-ground, the matter is really one
which is entirely within the functions of the parson
and churchwardens. Moreover, although it is not
generally known, the expenses of such works are a
legal charge against the parish, provided the church¬
wardens have had the previous countenance of their
colleagues the overseers. The account for the due
and proper maintenance of the disused churchyard
may be sent to the Burial Board, if there be such a
board, and, if not, to the overseers, and the cost will
in any case fall upon the poor-rate. Converting the
ground absolutely into a public garden is quite a
different matter, and, notwithstanding its difficulties,
it is the course usually adopted. First, the consent
of the Vestry is imperative, and every step is care¬
fully measured by a stringent Act of Parliament. A
petition for a faculty must be presented to the Bishop
of the diocese, and before it can be granted there
must be an official enquiry in public before the
Diocesan Chancellor — always a profound lawyer,
learned in ecclesiastical jurisprudence. Everybody
who has any claim or objection as to any particular
grave- space, or to the whole scheme altogether, has
a right to be heard; all reasonable requests are
usually granted, and the closing order, if made, is
mostly full of conditions and reservations in favour
of surviving relatives and others who have shewn
cause for retaining this tomb and that stone undis¬
turbed. In practice it is found that there are not very
many such claims, but it sometimes happens that
serious obstacles are left standing in the way of the
landscape gardener. One almost invariable regulation
requires that places shall be found within the

GRAVESTONES

enclosure for all the old stones in positions where
they can he seen and their inscriptions read ; to range
them in one or more rows against the interior of the
boundary fence is usually accepted as compliance
with this rule. Injudicious arrangement occasionally
obscures some of the inscriptions, but they are all
accessible if required, and anything is better than
extinction. It is earnestly to be hoped that at least
equal care is taken of the memorials in burial-
grounds which are less ceremoniously closed. Where
the work is thoughtfully conceived and discreetly
accomplished, much good and little harm is done to
a populous place by clearing the ground, laying out
footpaths, and planting trees and flowers. But the
gravestone, the solemn witness “ Sacred to the
Memory ” of the dead, is a pious trust which demands
our respect and protection, at least so long as it is
capable of proclaiming its mission. When it has
got past service and its testimony has been utterly
effaced by time, it is not so easy to find arguments
for its preservation. There is no sense or utility in
exhibiting a blank tablet, and I have seen without
scruple or remorse such superannuated vestiges
employed in repairing the church fabric. But this,
be it understood, is only when the stone is irretriev¬
ably beyond memento mori service, and on the clear
condition that it is employed in the furtherance of
religious work. It is true that a stone is only a
stone, whatever it may have been used for, but a
peculiar sanctity is in most minds associated with the
grave, and we ought not to run the risk of shocking
tender-hearted people by degrading even the dead
memorial of the dead to profane and secular purposes.
And yet, what has become in too many cases of the

OLD AND CURIOUS.

old gravestones ? The very old ones we may perhaps
account for, but where are the middle-aged ones of
the eighteenth century ? It cannot be doubted, alas,
that they have in many churchyards been deliberately
taken away and destroyed to make room for new
ones. Districts comprising many parishes may be
pointed out with all their old churches in the midst
of their old churchyards, but without one old grave¬
stone standing. The rule and practice have been to
quietly remove the relics of the forgotten sires in
order to dig new graves for a new generation. The
habit, as just said, rules by districts, and this is the
case in most matters connected with the subject of
this essay. It is a general and remarkable truth
that “good” and “bad” churchyards abound in
groups. The force of example or the instinct of
imitation may explain the fact, but it affords a sad
reflection upon the morality of the burial-place.
Kirke White asks :

“ Who would lay
His body in the City burial-place,

To be cast up again by some rude sexton ?”

In my experience the chief sinner is not the city,
but the country, sexton.

Other memorials than the headstone are scarcely
included in my subject. Tew of the slate slabs
which answer the purpose in Wales and some of the
bordering counties can maintain their inscriptions in
legible condition for a very long period, and they are
in all respects inferior to stone in durability. This
thought would have given no anxiety to the writer of
some Chapters on Churchyards which appeared in
“ Blackwood’s Magazine ” about 1820. Said he :

“In parts of Warwickshire and some of the
adjacent counties, more especially in the churchyards

GRAVESTONES

of the larger towns, the frightful fashion of black
tombstones is almost universal — black tombstones,
tall and slim, and lettered in gold, looking for all the

world like upright coffin-lids . Some village

burial-grounds here have, however, escaped this
treatment, and within the circuit of a few miles
round Warwick itself are many small hamlet churches
each surrounded by its lowly flock of green graves
and grey headstones .... some half sunk into the
churchyard mould, many carved out into cherubins
with their trumpeter’s cheeks and expanded wings, or
with the awful emblems, death’s heads and hones and
hour-glasses.”

Of the so-called black tombstones I have seen none
other than slate.

In a short tour through Wales, in 1898, I found
very few old headstones. Most of the memorials in
the churchyards were constructed of slate, which
abundant material is devoted to every conceivable
purpose. There is a kind of clay-slate more durable
than some of the native stones, and even the poorer
slate which perisheth is lasting in comparison with
the wooden planks which have been more or less
adopted in many burial-places, but can never have
been expected to endure more than a few brief years.
Wherever seen they are usually in decay, and under
circumstances so forlorn that it is an act of mercy to
end their existence.

Fig. 86.— AT HIGH BARNET.

I conclude my English illustrations of the grave¬
stones with one selected from the churchyard at
Kingston-on-Thames, and I leave its interpretation
to the reader.

High Baknet.

Kingston-on-Thames.

OLD AND CUmOTTS.

Fig. 87.— AT KIN G STON-ON -THAME S .

“ To Thomas Bennett, died 7th Dec. 1800,
aged 13 years.”

The remainder of my nnambitions hook will he
mostly devoted to impressions gained in Ireland and
Scotland and on the Continent in my autumn
holidays.

GRAVESTONES

CHAPTER X.

OLD GRAVESTONES IN IRELAND.

In entering upon a chapter dealing with cc Old Grave¬
stones in Ireland/’ one is tempted to follow a leading
case and sum up the subject in the words: “ There
are no old gravestones in Ireland.” But this would
be true only in a sense. Of those primitive and
rustic carvings, which are so distinctive of the
eighteenth-century memorials in England, I have
found an almost entire absence in my holiday-
journeyings about Ireland — the churchyards of which
I have sampled^ wherever opportunity was afforded
me, from Belfast and Portrush in the north, down to
Killarney and Queenstown in the south. But there
are unquestionably old gravestones of quite a
different order of simplicity in the Irish burial-
places, the most common type being the rough slab
of stone, several of which are here sketched at ran¬
dom from the graveyard of the large village or little
town of Swords, ten miles or so north of Dublin
(Fig. 88). Very few of these stones bear any inscrip¬
tion, and, according to the belief of the local resi¬
dents, never have been carved or even shaped in any
way. In one or two instances, however, the effort of
trimming the edges of the stone is clearly visible,
and in rare cases we see the pious but immature
attempts of the amateur mason to perpetuate, if only

Fig. 88.

Swords.

.f U iNoy

OLD AND CURIOUS.

by initials, the memory of the deceased.* Some such
records still remain, but many have doubtless
perished, for the material is only the soft freestone so
easily obtainable in the district, and the rains and
frosts of no great number of years have sufficed to
obliterate all such shallow carvings ; the surfaces of
the laminated rock being even now in process of
peeling olf before our eyes.

The cross and “T. L.” scratched on one of the
stones appears to be recent work, and the wonderful
preservation of the stone to Lawrence Paine, of 1686,
can only be accounted for by the supposition that it
has long lain buried, and been lately restored to the
light. The stone is of the same perishable kind as
the others, and it is certain that it could not have
survived exposure to the atmosphere, as its date
would imply, for upwards of 200 years. It may
even be found that the weather has chipped off the
edges of the stones which now appear so jagged,
shapeless, and grotesque ; but, from recent evidences
gathered elsewhere, it is but too probable that these
rude pillars have been, and still are, set up as they

* In a barren record of facts, such as this chapter is meant to be, I
avoid as far as possible deductions and reflections apart from my
immediate subject ; but it is impossible to pursue an investigation of
this character without being deeply interested both in the past
history and present life of the people. I cannot help saying that in
one day’s walk from Malahide to Balbriggan I learnt far more of the
Irish peasantry, the Irish character, and the Irish “ problem ” than I
had been able to acquire in all my reading, supported by not a little
experience in the capital and great towns of Ireland. The village
streets, the cabins, the schools, the agriculture and the land, the
farmer and the landlord, the poverty and the hospitality of the people,
were all to be studied at first hand ; and there were churches by the
way at Swords and Rush which the archaeologist will seek in vain to
match in any other country. The Round Tower (Celtic no doubt) at
the former place, and the battlemented fortalice, which is more like a
castle than a church, at Rush, are both worth a special visit.

GRAVESTONES

come from the quarry, without dressing and free
from any carving or attention whatever.

Many instances may he found in which slabs of
stone, or even slate, have been erected quite recently,
the edges untrimmed, and the name of the deceased
simply painted upon them more or less inartistically,
as in the sketch from Drogheda (Fig. 89). Such
crude examples are the more remarkable in a busy
and thriving port like Drogheda, and amid many
handsome monuments, than among the peasantry of
the villages ; and it is easy to imagine that if nothing
more durable than paint has been employed to
immortalize the dead in past times all traces must
have speedily disappeared. The illustrations from
Drogheda give the whole inscription in each case,
neither having date nor age, nor any other particular
beyond the name. The memorial on the left hand
is of slate — the other two of freestone ; and the slate
in the northern parts of Ireland is the preferable of
the two materials.

There are at Bangor, ten miles west of Belfast,
many such slate records, which have endured for
more than a century, and are still in excellent
preservation. One which attracted my especial
notice at Bangor was of the professional character
here depicted, and in memory of one of those bold
privateers who were permitted to sail the seas on
their own account in the old war times.

Fig. 90.— AT BANGOR, IRELAND.

The following is the epitaph, as clearly to be read
now as on the day when it was carved on this slab
of Irish slate, more than a century since :

OLD AND CURIOUS.

“ Born to a course of Manly action free,

I dauntless trod ye fluctuating sea
In Pompous War or happier Peace to bring
Joy to my Sire and honour to my King.

And much by favour of the God was done
Ere half the term of human life was run.

One fatal night, returning from the bay
Where British fleets ye Gallic land survey,

Whilst with warm hope my trembling heart beat high,

My friends, my kindred, and my country nigh,

Lasht by the winds the waves arose and bore
Our Ship in shattered fragments to the shore.

There ye flak’d surge opprest my darkening sight,

And there my eyes for ever lost the light.

“ Captain George Colvill of the Private Ship
of War ‘Amazon/ and only son of
Robert Colvill of Bangor, was wrecked
near this ground 25th February 1780, in
ye 22nd year of his age.”

A possible explanation of the long endurance of
this slate slab may be found in the practice which
prevails in this and some other churchyards of giving
all such memorials a periodical coat of paint; of
which, however, in the case here quoted there is no
remaining trace.

Altogether, primitive as they may be, the grave¬
stones of the last century in Ireland, so far as I have
seen them, compare favourably with the works of
the hedge-mason in England which we have seen in
earlier chapters. Even the poor pillar of rough stone,
unhewn, ungarnished, and bare as it is, represents an
affectionate remembrance of the dead which is full
of pathos, and has a refinement in its simplicity
which commands our sympathy far above the semi-
barbarous engravings of heads and skulls which we
have previously pictured. The immaturity of provin¬
ce

GRAVESTONES

cial art in Ireland is at least redeemed by an absence
of sucb monstrous figures and designs as we at the
present day usually associate with the carvings of
savages in the African interior.

But the eighteenth-century gravestones in Ireland
are not all of the primitive kind — many of them
being as artistic and well-finished as any to be found
in other parts of the British Isles. The predominant
type is the “I. ELS./’ surmounted by the cross,
which appears on probably four-fifths of the in¬
scribed stones of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries in Ireland. The only instances which
came under my notice bearing any resemblance to
the incipient notions of human heads so frequently
met with in certain parts of England were the three
here copied (Eig. 91). Nos. 2 and 3 are taken from
gravestones in the old churchyard near Queenstown,
and the other appears in duplicate on one stone at
Muckross Abbey by the Lakes of Killarney.* The
stately wreck of Muckross Abbey has in its decay
enclosed within its walls the tombs of knights and
heroes whose monuments stand in gorgeous contrast
to the desolation which is mouldering around them ;
while on the south side of the ancient edifice is the
graveyard in which the peasant-fathers of the hamlet
sleep, the green mounds which cover them in some
instances marked by carved stones taken from the
adjacent ruins. Both Abbey and grounds are still
used for interments, together with the enclosure
about the little church of Killaghie on the neigh-

* The Muckross stone (No. 1) was overgrown with ivy which quite
covered up the inscription, hut its date was probably about 1750. Of
the two from Queenstown, No. 2 is to Mary Gammell, 1793, aged 53 ;
and No. 3 to Roger Brettridge, 1776, aged 63.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

bouring eminence — a cbnrcb which (like a few
others) enjoys the reputation of being the smallest
in the kingdom.

I leave to the ethnologists the task of accounting
for these abnormal carvings in the South of Ireland^
and associating them with the like productions of
the same period in the South of England. Or
perhaps I ought rather to excuse my insufficient
researches^ which, though spread over a broad area_,
are yet confined to but a few of the many spots
available,, and may very probably have passed by
unexplored the fruitful fields. But, in the words of
Professor Stephens,, the apostle of Runic monuments^
I claim for this work that it is “ only a beginnings a
breaking of the ice^ a ground upon which others may
build.” My pages are but “ feelers groping out
things and thoughts for further examination.”

GRAVESTONES

CHAPTER XI.

OLD GRAVESTONES IN SCOTLAND.

A vert peculiar interest attaches to the old stones
which survive in the burial-grounds of Scotland.
Regarded generally they are of a description quite
apart from the prevalent features of their English and
Irish prototypes. Taking the same period as hitherto
in limiting our purview of the subject, that is from
the latter part of the seventeenth to the early part
of the nineteenth century, it may perhaps he said
that the Scottish headstones are tablets of Scottish
history and registers of Scottish character during a
long and memorable time. The one all-prevalent
feature everywhere is indicative of the severe piety
and self-sacrifice of an age and a people remarkable
for one of the simplest professions of faith that has
ever existed under the Christian dispensation. The
rigid discipline, contempt for form, and sustained
humility of the old Covenanters are written deeply in
the modest stones which mark the green graves of
their faithful dead during a period of fully two
hundred years. The vainglory of a graven stone to
exalt the virtues of imperfect men and women was
to them a forbidden thing ; the ostentation even of
a name carved on a slab was at variance with
doctrine ; the cravings of a poor humanity to be
remembered after death had to be satisfied with
bare initials, and initials are all that were written
on the gravestones in many thousands of cases.

Fig. 92. Inverness.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

probably ninety per cent, of the whole, throughout
the eighteenth century and approximate years. But
the rule was not without its exceptions, often of
novel and peculiar description. The skull and cross¬
bone series, so common in the south, have no place
in North Britain; while the symbol of the cross, so
frequent in Ireland, is very rarely to be found in any
shape whatever within the boundaries of a Scottish
burial-place. I present four specimen types from
the old chapel-yard at Inverness.

Fig. 92.— AT INVERNESS.

On the stone No. 2 the tailor’s tools — shears,
goose, and bodkin — are clear enough, and I was told
that the figures on the stone in the lower left-hand
corner (No. 3) are locally recognized as the shuttle
and some other requisite of the weaver’s trade.
Inverness had spinning and weaving for its staple
industries when Pennant visited the place in 1759.
Its exports of cordage and sacking were considerable,
and (says Pennant) the linen manufacture saves
the town above £3000 a year, which used to go to
Holland.”

In the 1698 example (No. 1) the short and” (&)
leaves no doubt that W. F. & J. MCP. (probably
McPherson and his wife) are there buried ; and the
similar information is almost as certainly conveyed
in the manifold cases in which appears the sign
which occupies the same position in the two lower
stones (Nos. 3 and 4). These, however, are all of
later date, and may be set down as developments, or
rather corruptions, of the original form. The same
signs, however, constantly occur in all the northern
graveyards.

GRAVESTONES

Scotland has also its cruder form of memorial in
the rough unhewn slabs of native freestone, which
are used in all parts of the British Isles wherever
such material is readily procurable.

Fig. 98.— AT BBAEMAR.

Two of these slabs of different degrees are seen
in my Braemar sketch, but both seem of one family
and serve to shew us the unconscious evolution of a
doctrinal law into a national custom. The employ¬
ment of initials, originally the sacrifice and self-
denial of a dissentient faith, is here, as in other
instances, combined with the Catholic emblem of
the Cross. This little graveyard of Braemar, lying
among the moors and mountains which surround
Balmoral, and accustomed to receiving illustrious
pilgrims whose shoe-string the poor gravestone tramp
is not worthy to unloose, is still used for indis¬
criminate burials, and furnishes several examples of
Roman Catholic interments. Wherever such are
found in Scotland, bearing dates of the eighteenth
century, they are usually of the rough character
depicted in the sketch. The recumbent slab in the
same drawing is given to illustrate the table or altar
stone, which throughout Scotland has been used
all through the Covenantic period to evade the
Covenantic rule of the simple anonymous gravestone,
for such memorials are almost invariably engraved
and inscribed with designs and epitaphs, sometimes
of the most elaborate character. But these are not
mere gravestones : they are tombs.”

OLD AND CURIOUS.

Fig. 94. — AT STIRLING.

In all parts of Scotland at which we find departures
from the conventional simplicity of the gravestone,
the variation inclines abundantly towards the symbols
of trade and husbandry. At Stirling, in the noble
churchyard perched on the Castle Rock, the weaver’s
shuttle noticed at Inverness appears in many varieties,
for Pennant tells us that in 1772 Stirling, with only
4000 inhabitants, was an important factory of
“ tartanes and shalloons,” and employed about thirty
looms in making carpets.* Occasionally the bobbin
is represented alone, but the predominant fashion is
the shuttle open and revealing the bobbin in its
place. This is as it appears in No. 1 of the four
sketches from Stirling, where it seems to indicate,
with the shovel and rake, a mingling of weaver and
agriculturist. The other trade emblems speak for
themselves, excepting the reversed figure 4 in the
stone of 1710 (No. 8). This sign has been variously
interpreted, but the most reliable authorities say
that it is a merchant’s mark used not only in Stirling
but in other parts of Scotland, if not of England.
There are in Howff Burial-ground, Dundee, and in
many country churchyards round about that town
and Stirling, numerous varieties of this figure, some
having the “4” in the ordinary unreversed shape,
some with and some without the -ft, some of both
shapes resting on the letter “ M,” and others inde¬
pendent of any support whatever. It has also been
supposed to have some connection with the masons’

* Pennant pronounced the view from Stirling heights “ the finest
in Scotland.”

GRAVESTONES

marks frequently to be seen in old churches* and is
even regarded as possibly of prehistoric origin.*

Fig. 95.— AT BLAIRGOWRIE.

The stone copied at Blairgowrie is an enigma
which I scarcely dare to unravel* but it will admit of
several interpretations. “I. E.” probably stands for
John Elder and “ M. H.” for his “ spouse/’ but to
set out John Elder’s name in full, and at the same
time to insert his initials* shews either a miscon¬
ception of* or disregard for, the principles and usages
of the Presbytery. Otherwise* in some respects*
this example is almost worthy to be classed with
the more degenerate forms of churchyard sculpture
in England ; the skull* the crown* the hour-glass* the
coffin, and the bones being all well-known and con¬
ventional signs. The compasses may stand for John
Elder’s profession* but the figure which resembles a
cheese-cutter* just below the crown* can only be a
subject of conjecture. This stone* which is one of
the least artistic I have met with in Scotland* is an
evidence to shew that the rural sculptor was as ready
in the north as in the south to blossom forth had he
not been checked by the rigours of the Church. At
times indeed the mortal passion for a name to live
to posterity was too strong to be altogether curbed*
as we may see manifested even in the prescribed
initials when they are moulded of heroic size* from
8 to 10 inches being no uncommon height. Remark-

* The vulgar explanation of the sign is <c4cZ. discount on the
shilling/’ and some of the guide-books are not much better informed
when they assume that it marks Stirling as the fourth city of Scot¬
land, for in the old roll of Scottish burghs Stirling stands fifth.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

able also is the fact just mentioned (page 86) that;
concurrently with the erection of these dumb head¬
stones, there were flat or table stones* allowed, upon
which not only were the names and virtues of the
departed fully set forth, but all sorts of emblematical
devices introduced. The table tomb was probably
in itself a vanity, and, the boundary passed, there
appears to have been no limit to its excesses. There
are a great many instances of this at Inverness,
Aberdeen, Keith, Dunblane, and elsewhere, and the
stone which appears in the sketch from Braemar is
only one of several in that very limited space. Such
exceptional cases seem to indicate some local relaxa¬
tion from the austerity of the period, which was
apparently most intense in the centres of population.
Humility at the grave extended even to the material
of the gravestone. At Aberdeen, the Granite City,
few of the last-century gravestones are of any better
material than the soft sandstones which must have
been imported from Elgin or the south. The rule of
initials was almost universal. In like manner, when
it became the custom to purchase grave-spaces, the
simplest possible words were employed to denote the
ownership. I noticed one stone in Aberdeen bearing
on its face the medallion portrait of a lady, and only
the words of Isaiah, chapter xl. verse 6 : “ The voice
said. All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof
is as the flower of the field.” At the back of the
stone is written : “ This burying ground, containing
two graves, belongs to William Bait, Merchant.
Aberdeen, 1800.” The practice of carving on both
faces of the headstone is very common in Scotland,

* It has been suggested to me that these ;c tombs ” were the
luxuries of the wealthier inhabitants.

GRAVESTONES

and, so far as I have observed, in Scotland alone ;
but; strange as it may seem, Scotland and Ireland
when they write gravestone inscriptions have one
habit in common, that of beginning their epitaphs,
not with the name of the deceased person, but with
the name of the person who provides the stone.
Thus : —

Erected by William Brown
to his Father John Brown,
etc., etc.

Laufen.

1. Cut into stone.

4. Iron plate and rod.

2. Anchor of iron on dwarf stone

5. Wooden cross.

pillar.

6. Wooden cross.

3. Heart and anchor of thin iron

on dwarf stone pillar.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER XII.

OLD GRAVESTONES ABROAD.

“ Abroad ” is a big place,, and no sufficient treatment
under the head of this chapter is possible except to
one who has had very great experience and extended
research. Nevertheless I may, with all due diffidence
and modesty, tell the little I know on the subject.
My opportunities of investigation have been few, and
restricted to a limited area — so restricted and so
limited that I cannot tell whether or not the observa¬
tions I have made may be taken as indications of
national habits or merely as idiosyncrasies of the
people inhabiting the particular localities which I
was able to visit. All the churchyards which I have
seen in France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland
very much resemble each other, and are altogether
unlike the graveyards of Great Britain and her
children. It is to the villages we should naturally
go for primitive memorials of the dead, but in all the
continental villages which I have visited memorials
of a permanent character, either old or new, are
scarcely to be seen. Occasionally a stone slab may be
encountered, but almost always of recent date. At
Laufen in the Canton of Zurich, near the Falls of
the Rhine, I selected almost at random the examples
of memorials shewn in my sketch (Fig. 96), one or
other of which was at the head of nearly every
grave.

GRAVESTONES

Fig. 96.— AT LAUFEK

The average height of these mementoes was about
2 feet, and all the dates which I saw were of the last
twenty-five years. Permanence indeed is apparently
not considered as it is with ns in the like circum¬
stances. The British gravestone is trusted to per¬
petuate at least the names of our departed friends
down to the days of our posterity, but the provision
made by our neighbours seems to have been for the
existing generation only. Posterity does not trouble
the villagers of Switzerland nor their prototypes of
other nations around them. This fact was strongly
exemplified at Neuhausen, a small place on the other
bank of the Bhine, “five minutes from Germany ” we
were told.

Pig. 97.— AT ISTEUHAUSElsr.

In the churchyard at this place was one handsome
tombstone, shewn in the drawing, erected apparently
in 1790. This was evidence of somewhat ancient art,
and I looked about for the old gravestones which
should have kept it company. Erect in its place there
was not one, but in the remotest corner of the
enclosure I came upon several stones lying flat, one
upon another, the uppermost and only visible inscrip¬
tion bearing the recent date of 1870 ! Only twenty
years or so “ on sentry y 9 at the grave, and already
relieved from duty ! There was likewise a miscel¬
laneous heap of old crosses, etc., of iron and wood,
the writing on which had disappeared, and they
might reasonably have been condemned as of no
further service; but that gravestones in perfect

OLD AND CTJRIODS.

preservation should have been thought to have served
their full purpose in a little over twenty years,, and be
cast aside as no longer requisite, was a remarkable
lesson in national character. All the graves were
flat; and at the head of every recent one was a small
iron slab bearing a number. Many of those which
had crosses were hung with immortelles, composed
generally of glass-beads.

In 'JSTeuhausen Graveyard, at the end of the row of
graves, are seen two rings protruding from the
ground. Lying near is an iron shield with two simi¬
lar rings surmounting it. It is readily supposed that
the first-named rings are also attached to a shield
buried in the earth, and so it proves. In order that
no space may be lost between the graves, the shields
are used alternately to serve as the dividing wall, and
are then drawn out, thus enabling the sexton to pack
the coffins close together.

The towns and cities abroad have their cemeteries
beyond the outskirts, as is the practice here.
Occasionally an old churchyard is to be met with,
but never an old gravestone as we know it. Still
there are instances in which ancient carvings of the
same character have been saved by attachment to
the church or churchyard wall. Several such are to
be seen in German churchyards long since converted
to purposes of recreation, and one at Heidelberg may
be taken as an example.

Fig. 98.— AT HEIDELBERG.

To “Barbara Fosterii,” died 1745, aged 67.

GRAVESTONES

Benea-th is the text from the First Epistle of Peter,
chapter i. verses 24 and 25.

“ All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower
of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof
fallethaway : but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever.”

At Lucerne, under similar conditions, the striking
figures of two skeletons, partly in military garb,
keep guard over the tablet which records the virtues
of a departed hero. He was probably a soldier, but
the figure of a lictor on the left with his fasces of
axe and rods seems to betoken some civil employ¬
ment. In ancient times the lidors walked in advance
of the magistrates, and executed sentence when pro¬
nounced.

Fig. 99.— AT LUCEBNE.

To “Iodoco Bernardo Hartman,” died 1752,
aged 67 years.

The two last-given illustrations may possibly
belong to the category of mural tablets rather than
that of gravestones, being fixed apparently by original
design, and not by afterthought, as in our u con¬
verted 99 burial-grounds, against the outer walls of
the church. There are, however, no other remains
which I could discover bearing any resemblance to
the old British headstone, and the evanescent charac¬
ter which seems to have attached for a certain period
to the memorials of the dead among our neighbours
abroad forbids the expectation that any such as those
which have appeared in our earlier chapters are to be
found in Europe outside the boundaries of our Empire.
In more modern observances, especially in the centres

OLD AND CURIOUS.

of population, English and continental manners more
nearly approximate ; and in the many new cemeteries
which are now to he found adjacent to the cities and
large towns of Western Europe there are tombs and
gravestones as many and as costly as are to he found
in any round London. In Germany the present
practice appears to be single interments, and one
inscription only on the stone, and that studiously
brief. Thus :

Eduard Schmidt
Geb d. 8 Oct., 1886.
Gest d. 10 Jan., 1887.

This I copied in the cemetery at Schaff hausen.
But at Hendon, a north-west suburb of London,
has recently been placed against the church wall a
still simpler memorial, a small slab of marble,
inscribed :

Carl Richard Loose

B. 21 . 1 . 52 : D. 14 . 10 . 81.

For brevity in excelsis the following, from the
cemetery at Heidelberg, can hardly be eclipsed :

Michael Seiler
1805.— 1887.

GRAVESTONES

Sometimes the asterisk is used by the Germans to
denote birth,, and the dagger (or cross) for deaths
thus :

Hier Risht in Gott
Natalie Brethke
* 1850. f 1884.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

CHAPTER XIII.

VERY OLD GRAVESTONES.

Although, for reasons already explained or surmised,
the gravestones in our burial-grounds seldom exceed
an age of 200 years, there has probably been no time
and no race of men in which such memorials were
unknown. Professor Dr. John Stuart, the Scottish
antiquary,* opines that “ the erection of stones to the
memory of the dead has been common to all the world
from the earliest times/5 and there are many instances
recorded in the Old Testament, as when Rachel died
and Jacob “set a pillar upon her grave 55 (Genesis,
chapter xxxv. verse 20) ; and another authority, Mr.
R. R. Brash,f in a similar strain, comments on the
sentiment which appears to have been common to
human nature in all ages, and among all conditions
of mankind, namely a desire to leave after him some¬
thing to perpetuate his memory, something more
durable than his frail humanity. This propensity
doubtless led him in his earliest and rudest state to
set on end in the earth the rough and unhewn pillar
stone which he found lying prostrate on the surface,
and these hoar memorials exist in almost every
country.

* “ The Sculptured Stones of Scotland” (two volumes), by John
Stuart, LL.D., Secretary to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.

f “ Ogam Inscribed Monuments,” by R. R. Brash ; edited by
G. M. Atkinson.

GRAVESTONES

A remarkable instance is afforded by Absalom, the
son of David, who himself set np a stone to record
his memory: “Now Absalom in his lifetime had
taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in
the king’s dale : for he said, I have no son to keep
my name in remembrance : and he called the pillar
after his own name : and it is called unto this day,
Absalom’s place” (2 Samuel, chapter xviii. verse 18).

Professor Stuart indeed declares that there is no
custom in the history of human progress which serves
so much to connect the remote past with the present
period as the erection of pillar stones. We meet
with it, he says, in the infancy of history, and it is
even yet, in some shape or other, the means by which
man hopes to hand down his memory to the future.
The sculptured tombs of early nations often furnish
the only key to their modes of life ; and their
memorial stones, if they may not in all cases be
classed with sepulchral records, must yet be con¬
sidered as remains of the same early period when the
rock was the only book in which an author could
convey his thoughts, and when history was to be
handed down by memorials which should always
meet the eye and prompt the question, “ What mean
ye by these stones ?”

To such remote antiquity, however, it is probably
undesirable to follow our subject. It will no doubt
be thought sufficient for this essay if we leave
altogether out of view the researches which have
been made in the older empires of the earth, and
confine ourselves to the records of our own country.
Of these, however, there are many, and they are full
of interest. In date they probably occupy a period
partly Pagan and partly Christian, and it has been

Fig. 100.

The Beessay Stone.

Fig. 101. Lunnasting and Kilbak Stones.

OGAM AND RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

conjectured that all or most of those discovered had
their source in Ireland, with a possibility of an
earlier importation into Ireland by Icelandic, Danish,
or other peoples. Many of these stones have been
found buried in the ruins of old churches, and most
of them may he supposed to owe their preservation
to some such protection. The drawings of one or
two may be given as samples. Those here sketched
(Figs. 100 and 101) are in the National Museum of
Antiquities of Scotland, and occupy with others a
considerable space, being well displayed to shew the
inscriptions on both sides.* It is by the fact of both
sides being written upon that we assign to them the
character of gravestones, that is upright gravestones ;
hut it is also well authenticated by historical records
that the memorial of a Pagan chief in Ireland was a
cairn with a pillar stone standing upon it, and there
is little doubt that the Irish invaders carried the
practice with them into Scotland. It is indeed in
Scotland that a large proportion of these stones have
been discovered, and there are more than a hundred
of them in the Edinburgh Museum. In the Museum
at Dublin there is also a good collection, conveniently
arranged; but the British Museum in London has
less than half a dozen — only five — specimens. The
number in each of the three museums fairly represents
the relative abundance of such remains in England,
Scotland, and Ireland. Marked on a chart the
discoveries are thickly grouped in the North-Western

* The National Museum of Antiquities in Queen Street, Edin¬
burgh, is unequalled by any other collection of British and Celtic
remains. All these memorial stones are carefully catalogued, and have,
moreover, the advantage of being described at length, with full illus¬
tration, in Professor Stuart's copious work (previously mentioned) on
“ The Sculptured Stones of Scotland.”

H 2

100

GRAVESTONES

parts of Scotland, in the South of Ireland, and on
the South-Western promontory of Wales. In Corn¬
wall and Devonshire, along the coast line, there
have been found a goodly few, and the others are
dotted sparsely over the whole kingdom — England,
as just indicated, furnishing only a modicum.

The inscriptions upon such stones, when they
are inscribed, are usually in Ogam or Runic
characters. An example of the Ogam writing is
shewn on the edges of the Bressay stone (Fig. 100),
and also on the front side of the Lunnasting stone
(Fig. 101a). The Ogam style was used by the
ancient Irish and some other Celtic nations, and the
“ Ogams,” or letters, consist principally of lines, or
groups of lines, deriving their signification from their
position on a single stem, or chief line, over, under,
or through which they are drawn, perpendicularly or
obliquely. Curves rarely occur; hut some are seen
in the inscription on the Bressay stone, which has
been thus interpreted by Dr. Graves, Bishop of
Limerick : “ Bentire, or the Son of the Druid, lies
here.” u The Cross of Nordred’s daughter is here
placed.” This stone was found by a labourer about
1851, while digging in a piece of waste ground near
the ruinous church of Culbinsgarth at Bressay, Shet¬
land. The design is said to be thoroughly Irish,
and the inscription a mixture of Irish and Icelandic.
The stone measures 4 ft. by 1 ft. 4^ in. by 2 in. It is
attributed to the ninth century.

The stone 101 a is a slab of brownish sandstone,
44 in. by 13 in. by ljin., from Lunnasting, also in
Shetland. It was found five feet below the surface in
1876, and, having probably lain there for centuries, was
in excellent preservation. The authorities, however,

OLD AND CURIOUS.

101

are unable to make a satisfactory translation. The
cross or dagger is also of doubtful explanation ; and
Mr. Gilbert Goudie thinks it is a mere mason’s mark.
It is, however, admitted on all hands that the stone
is of Christian origin, and probably of the period
just subsequent to the termination of the Roman
rule in Britain. It has been suggested that most of
these ancient gravestones were carved and set up by
the Irish missionary monks not earlier than a.d. 580.
The Ogam inscription on the Lunnasting stone has
been made by one expert to read :

EATTUICHEATTS MAHEADTTANNN
HCCEESTFE NCDTONS.

A strange and inexplicable aggregation of con¬
sonants.

The stone represented below, 101 5, bears an in¬
scription in Runic characters. Runic is a term
applied to any mysterious writing ; but there were
three leading classes of “ runes” — Scandinavian,
German, and Anglo-Saxon — -all agreeing in certain
features, and all ascribed by some authorities to the
Phoenicians. The stone 101 h was found in 1865, at
Kilbar, Barra, a remote island of the outer Hebrides,
off the north-west coast of Scotland. It measures
6 ft. 5| in. in height, and its greatest width is
15^ inches. Mr. Carmichael has conjectured that it
was probably brought from Iona about the beginning
of the seventeenth century, and erected in Barra at
the head of a grave made by a son of McNeil for
himself. But it is believed to have been in any case
a Norse memorial in the first instance, though
certainly Christian, for it reads :

102

GRAVESTONES

Ur and Thnr Gared set np the stones of Biskar.*
May Christ guard his soul.”

The Barra stone has on the reverse side a large
cross, carved in plaited hands. Dr. Petrie has
pointed out that the cross is not necessarily indicative
of belief, the ancient Danes and other peoples having
used various signs — the cross frequently — to mark
their boundaries, their cattle, and their graves. t
There is little doubt, however, that in most of these
British and Irish memorials, although the stones
may originally have been Pagan, the cross is typical
of Christianity. We are told that it was not unusual
for St. Patrick to dedicate Pagan monuments to
the honour of the true God. On one occasion, it is
related, on the authority of an ancient life of the
Saint, that, on coming to the Plain of Magh Solga,
near Elphin, he found three pillar stones which had
been raised there by the Pagans, either as memorials
of events or for the celebration of Pagan rites, on
one of which he inscribed the name of Jesus, on
another Soter, and on the third Salvator, along
probably with the cross, such as is seen on nearly every
Christian monument in Ireland. In the same way
on two of five upright pillars in the parish of Maroun,
Isle of Man, are crosses deeply incised. This spot is
traditionally associated with St. Patrick as the place
where he preached, and the stones appear to be
remains of a Druidical circle.

This practice is quite consistent with the principles

* Riskar, or Raskar, is a surname of the Norwegians, who were
early settled in the Western Islands and adopted the Christian faith.
— “ Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England,”
by Dr. George Stephens, F.S.A.

f “ Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language.” Collected by
George Petrie, and edited by Miss M. Stokes.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

103

upon which the Christian conversion was established
by the early missionaries. Thus, Gregory, in a letter
from Rome, in 601, directed that the idolatrous
temples in England should not be destroyed, but
turned into Christian churches, in order that the
people might be induced to resort to their customary
places of worship ; and they were even allowed to kill
cattle as sacrifices to God, as had been their practice
in their previous idolatry. Hence also arose the
system of establishing new churches on the sites
previously held as consecrated by heathen worship.

Of the five old gravestones in the British Museum,
four are from Ireland and one from Eardell in Devon¬
shire. The Eardell stone was found about the year
1850, acting as a footbridge across a small brook at
Eardell, near Ivybridge, Devonshire — a district once
inhabited by a Celtic tribe. It is of coarse granite,
6 ft. 3 in. high, 2 ft. 9 in. broad, and from 7 to 9 inches
thick. It bears an Ogam inscription on two angles
of the same face, and debased Roman characters on
the front and back. It reads, according to Mr.
Brash, in the Ogam, “ Safagguc the son of Cuic
and, in the Roman, “ Fanon the son of Rian.”

The three Irish Ogam stones were presented to the
British Museum by Colonel A. Lane Fox, F.S.A.,
who dug them out of an ancient fort at Roovesmore,
near Kilcrea, on the Cork Railway, where they were
forming the roof of a subterranean chamber. Ho. 1
cannot be positively deciphered or translated ; Ho. 2
is inscribed to “the son of Falaman,” who lived in
the eighth century, and also to “the son of Erca,”
one of a family of Kings and Bishops who flourished in
the ancient kingdom of Ireland ; and Ho. 3, which is
damaged, is supposed to have been dedicated to a

104

GRAVESTONES

Bishop Usaille, about a.d. 454. All the stones came
probably from some cemetery in the district in which
they were found.

It has been remarked that the distribution of these
old stones marks clearly the ancient history of our
islands ; their frequency or rarity in each case corre¬
sponding accurately with the relations existing in
remote times between Ireland on the one side,, and
Wales, Cornwall^ and Scotland on the other. Further
enquiry into the subject is scarcely to be expected
in this rudimentary work.

To seek for the germ of the gravestone is indeed
a far quest. Like the ignis fatuus, it recedes as we
seem to approach it. In the sculpture galleries of
the British Museum there are several examples
preserved to us from the ancient Empire of Assyria,
and one described as the “ Monolith of Shah-
naneser II., King of Assyria, b.c. 850,” is almost the
exact counterpart of the headstones which are in
vogue to-day. It stands 5 ft. 6 in. high, is 2 ft. 9 in.
wide, and 8 inches thick Like the Scottish stones of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it is inscribed
on both faces.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

105

CHAPTER XIY.

THE REGULATION OF GRAVESTONES.

It has been already pointed out, and is probably well
known, that the clergyman of the parish church has
possessed from immemorial time the prerogative of
refusing to allow in the churchyard under his control
any monument, gravestone, design, or epitaph which
is, in his opinion, irreverent, indecorous, or in any
way unbecoming the solemnity and sanctity of the
place. This authority, wherever exercised, has been
subject to the higher jurisdiction of the Diocesan
Bishop, and presumably to the rule of the Eccle¬
siastical Courts ; but, as we have seen, the authority
has been but indifferently employed, and the inference
is that the clergy have in times past been wofully
ignorant or lamentably careless as to their powers
and obligations. A more healthy system now pre¬
vails, and we seldom or never find anything in the
way of ornament, emblem, or inscription of an offen¬
sive or ridiculous character placed in any of our
burial-grounds, the Burial Boards being as strict and
watchful over the cemeteries as the rectors and vicars
are in the management of the churchyards. Nor
has there been, so far as we have gone, any difficulty
in reconciling this stringency of supervision with
the Acts of Parliament which have been passed in
recognition of religious equality at the grave ; and it

106

GRAVESTONES

is not too much to hope that there is in the present
day such universal prevalence of good taste and
propriety under the solemnity of death as to ensure
concurrence among all sects and parties in securing
decorum in all things relating to interments. To
the incongruities which have been left to us as
legacies from our ancestors we may be indulgent.
They are landmarks of the generations which created
them; and records of times and manners which we
would fain believe that we have left behind in these
days of better education and better thought. They
are therefore of value to us as items of history, and,
though we would not repeat many of them.; we shall
preserve them; not only because we reverence the
graves of our forefathers, but because they are
entitled to our protection as ancient monuments.
However uncouth they may be in design or expression,
they must be tolerated for their age. It cannot be
denied that some of them try our patience, in the
epitaphs even more perhaps than in the carvings, and
“merely mock whom they were meant to honour.”
Two out of a vast number may be selected as painful
evidences of a departed century’s tombstone ribaldry.
The first, from a village near Bath, is a deplorable
mixture of piety and profanity, sentiment and
vulgarity :

“ To the memory of Thomas and Richard Fry, stonemasons, who
were crushed to death, Aug. the 25th, 1776, by the slipdown of a wall
they were in the act of building. Thomas was 19 and Richard
21 years.

“ They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death were
not divided.

“Blessed are they that die in the Lord, for their works follow
them.

“ A sacred Truth : now learn our awful fate.

OLD AND CURIOUS.

107

“ Dear Friends, we were first cousins, and what not :
To toil as masons was our humble lot.

As just returning from a house of call,

The parson bade us set about his wall.

Flush’d with good liquor, cheerfully we strove
To place big stones below and big above ;

We made too quick work — down the fabric came ;
It crush’d our vitals : people call’d out shame !

But we heard nothing, mute as fish we lay,

And shall lie sprawling till the judgment day.
From our misfortune this good moral know —
Never to work too fast nor drink too slow.”

The other is at Cray ford, and is as follows :

“ Here lieth the body of Peter Isnet, 30 years clerk of this parish.
He lived respected as a Pious and a Mirthful Man, and died on bis
way to church to assist at a wedding on the 31st day of March 1811,
aged 70 years. The inhabitants of Crayford have raised this stone to
his cheerful memory and as a Tribute to his Long and Faithful
Services.

“ The age of this clerk was just three score and ten.

Nearly half of which time he had sung out Amen !

In his youth he was married, like other young men,

But his wife died one day, and he chanted Amen !

A second he took. She departed : what then ?

He married and buried a third, with Amen !

Thus his joys and his sorrows were Treble, but then,

His voice was deep Bass as he sung out Amen !

On the Horn he could blow as well as most men,

So his horn was exalted in blowing Amen !

But he lost all his wind after Three Score and Ten,

And here with Three Wives he waits till again
The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out Amen /”

The habit of imitation which we have noticed in
the masonry of the gravestone is even more pro¬
nounced in the epitaphs. One of the most familiar
verses is that which usually reads :

“ Affliction sore long time I bore,

Physicians were in vain,

Till Death did seize and God did please
To ease me of my pain.”

108

GRAVESTONES

These lines, however, have undergone variations
out of number, a not infrequent device being to
adapt them to circumstances by such changes as —

“ Affliction sore short time I bore,” etc.

The same idea has an extended application at the
grave of Joseph Crate., who died in 1805, aged 42
years, and is buried at Hendon Churchyard :

“ Affliction sore long time I bore,

Physicians were in vain :

My children dear and wife, whose care
Assuaged my every pain,

Are left behind to mourn my fate :

Then Christians let them find
That pity which their case excites
And prove to them most kind.”

But the most startling perversion of the original
text I saw in the churchyard at Saundersfoot, South
Wales, where the stone-carver had evidently had his
lesson by dictation, and made many original mistakes,
the most notable of which was in the second line : —
“ Affliction sore long time I bore,

Anitions were in vain,” etc.

The following from Hyden, Yorkshire, is remark¬
able :

“ William Strutton, of Padrington, buried 18th May, 1734, aged
97 years, who had by his first wife 28 children, by his second, 17 : was
own father to 45, grandfather to 86, great-grandfather to 23 ; in all
154 children.”

Witty tombstones, even when they are not vulgar,
are always in bad taste. Two well-known instances
may suffice —

On Dr. Walker, who wrote a book on English
Particles :

“ Here lie Walker’s Particles.”

On Dr. Puller :

“ Here lies Fuller’s Earth.”

OLD AND CURIOUS.

109

The same misplaced jocularity must be accountable
for an enigmatical inscription at St. Andrew’s, Wor¬
cester, on the tomb of a man who died in 1780, aged
65 years :

“ H. L. T. B. O.

R. W.

I. H. O. A. J. R

This, we are told, should be read as follows :

“ Here lyeth the Body of
Richard Weston

In hope of a Joyful Resurrection.”

Rhymed epitaphs have a history almost contem¬
poraneous with that of the old gravestones, having
their flourishing period between the middle of the
seventeenth century and the early part of the nine¬
teenth century. They were little used in England
prior to the reign of James the First, and it is
supposed that Mary, Queen of Scots, brought the
custom from France. She is also said to have been
an adept at composing epitaphs, and some attributed
to her are extant.

It may be suspected also that other inventors have
written a vast number of the more or less apocry¬
phal elegies which go to mate up the many books of
epitaphs which have been published ; but this is a
point wide of our subject, and we must be careful in
our Rambles that we do not go astray.

Enbejc.

Abbotts, Stapleford, 47.

Aberdeen, 89.

Aberystwith, 31.

Absalom’s Pillar, 98.

Acts of Parliament, 58, 59.
Afghanistan, 62.

Agricultural gravestones, 32, 33, 34.
“ Amazon,” privateer ship, 81.
America, 58.

Anglo-Saxon Churches, 38.
Artizans’ gravestones, 31.

Ashford, 23.

Assyrian tomb, 104.

Atkinson, G. M., on “ Ogams,” 97.

Balbriggan, 79.

Bangor, Ireland, 80, 81.
Barking, 43.

Barnes, 32.

Barnet, 46, 76.

Barra, 101, 102.

Bath, 106.

Beckenham, 33.

Belfast, 78.

Belgium, 91.

Benenden, 16.

Bermondsey, 29.

Bethnal Green, 65.

Bexley, 41, 42.

Bishop of diocese, 73.

Black gravestones, 76.
Blackheath, 38.

Blacksmith, village, 31.

“ Blackwood’s Magazine,” 75.
Blairgowrie, 88.

Board of Health, 59.

Bodiam, 16.

Book of Common Prayer, 54.
Boutell’s “-Monuments,” 36.
Braemar, 86, 89.

Brandeston, Suffolk, 56.

Brash on “ Ogams,” 97, 103.
Bressay stone, 100.

Bretons, 62, 63.

Bricklayer’s gravestone, 33.
British Museum, 99, 103, 1 04.
Britons, aboriginal, 50.

Bromley, 33.

Broxbourne, 45.

Buckliurst Hill, 45.

B unhill Pields graveyard, 26, 27.
Burial in churches, 51.

Burial Service, 54.

Burke, Edmund, 51.

Csesar, 50.

Carmichael, Mr., 101.
Carpenters’ gravestones, 31, 32.
Cattle in churchyards, 55.
Chalk, parish of, 13, 14.
Champion, S., 41.

Cheltenham, 68.

Cheshunt, 22, 69.

Chigwell, 46.

Chinese, 62.

Chingford, 45.

Chiselhurst, 19.

Christian burial, 50.

City Corporation, 58.

Clarkson, D. A., 61.

Cliffe, 21.

Closing graveyards, 59, 60.
Clubbe, Bev. Mr., 55.

Cobham, 31.

Colchester, court at, 55.

Colvill, Capt., 81.
Commonwealth, 53.

Continental gravestones, 91.
Cooling parish, 23.

Cornwall, 100, 104.
Covenanters, 84, 86.

Cranbrook, 16, 48.

Crayford, 17, 107.

Cray Yalley, 38.

Culbinsgarth, Shetland, 100.
Cuthbert, Archbishop, 49.

Darenth, 21.

Dartford, 6, 7, 21, 24, 33.
Deptford, 44.

Destruction of gravestones, 75.
Devonshire, 100, 103.

Dickens country, 11.

INDEX.

112

Diocesan Chancellor, 73.
Disused graveyards, 71.
Drogheda, 80.

Drur}’ Lane, 58.

Dublin, 78; Museum, 99.
Dunblane, 89.

Dundee, 87.

Early churchyards, 49.

East Ham, 24.

East Wickham, 10, 24.

Edgware, 46.

Edinburgh Museum, 99.

Edward VI., 52.

Elgin, 89.

Elizabeth, Queen, 52.

Elphin, 102.

Epitaphs, 4, 81, 106.

Epping Forest, 43, 45.

Erith, 12.

Essex, 43, 46.

Evolution of gravestones, 9.
Expense of preserving graveyards,
73.

Eardell stone, 103.

Farnborough, 18.

Fawkham, 22.

Figure 4 reversed, 87.

Finchley, 18.

Foot’s Cray, 41.

Fox, Col., 103.

France, 91, 109 ; graveyards in, 57.
Freemasons, 29.

Frindsbury, 13, 32.

Fuller, Dr., epitaph, 108.

Gardener’s gravestone, 34.

Gaskell’s “ Prymer,” 54.

Germany, 91, 92, 95, 96.

Goudhurst, 16.

Goudie, G, 101.

Gravediggers, 64.

Graves, Dr., 100.

Gravesend, 21, 34.

Gravestones, abroad, 91 ; agricul¬
tural, 32 ; artizans’, 31 ; brick¬
layer’s, 33 ; black, 76 ; carpenters’,
31, 32 ; evolution of, 9 ; destruc¬
tion of, 75 ; gardener’s, 34 ;
grotesque, 10 — 16 ; hunting, 36 ;
incised, 11 ; Kentish, peculiar,
22 ; neglected, 64, 71 ; orna¬
mented, 3, 70, 71; preservation

of, 62, 71 ; primitive, 12 ; pro¬
fessional, 31 ; rough, 78, 86 ;
schoolmaster’s, 33 ; sinking, 64 ;
unhewn, 78, 86 ; very old, 97.

Graveyards, closing of, 59 ; disused,
71 ; early, 49 ; preserving, 57 ;
preservation expenses, 73.

Greenford, 34.

Gregory, Pope, 103.

Grotesque gravestones, 10—16.

Gusthorp, ancient coffin at, 50.

Ham, East, 24.

Ham, West, 6, 34, 44.
Harrow-on-the-Hill, 34.
Hartley, Kent, 19.

Hatfield, 17.

Hawkhurst, 16.

Hebrides, 101.

Heidelberg, 93, 95.

Hendon, 23, 24, 66, 95, 108.
Henry VIII., 52.

Higliam, 11, 13.

High Halstow, 12, 13.

Hoo, 11, 12.

Hornsey, 18, 19, 66.

Horton Kirby, 20, 21.
House of Commons, 58.
Howtf, Dundee, 87.

Hunting gravestones, 36.
Hyden, Yorkshire, 108.

Incised stones, 11.

Inverness, 85, 89.

Iona, 101.

Ireland, 78, 90, 99, 100, 102, 104.
Irish monuments, 102.

Isle of Man, 102.

Isnet, Peter, 107-

Ivy bridge, Devonshire, 103.

Jacob and Kachel, 97.
James I., 109.

Jaw, the lower, 17, 18.
Jewish burial-ground, 49.

Keith, Scotland, 89.

Kent, tramps in, 35.

Kentish gravestones, peculiar, 22.
Keston, 64.

Kilbar, Barra, 101.

Killagliie, 82.

Killarney, 78, 82.

INDEX.

113

Kingsdown, 22.
Kingston-on-Thames, 76, 77.
Kirke White, 75.

Lambourn, 47.

Laufen, Zurich, 91, 92.

Lee, Kent, 22, 88.
Letheringham, Suffolk, 55.
Lewes, Sussex, 4, 5.
Lewisham, 17, 26.

Limerick, Bishop of, 100.
London, 28, 29, 58, 59, 66, 99.
London County Council, 60.
Longfield, 28, 29.

Louis XVI., 57.

Lucerne, 94.

Lunnasting, Shetland, 100.
Lydd, 29.

Magh Solga, 102.

Malahide, 79.

Maroun, Isle of Man, 102.

Mary, Queen of Scots, 109.
Medway Marshes, 23.

Meopham, 16.

Metropolitan Board of Works, 60.
Moorish graveyards, 62.

Muckross Abbey, 82.

Neglected gravestones, 64, 71.
Neuhausen, 92, 93.
Newhaven, 1, 2, 3, 4, 21.

New Zealand, 62.

Nightcap on skull, 18.

Norse memorial, 102.

North Cray, 41.

Northolt, Middlesex, 71.

Ogam inscriptions, 97, 100, 103.
Old Eomney, 17.

Ornaments on gravestones, 3, 70,

71.

Orpington, 38, 39.

Padrington, 108.

Paganism, 50, 67, 98, 102.
Paris, burial reform, 57.
Pennant, 85, 87.

Penry, J., a Welshman, 53.
Pere la Chaise, 57.

Petrie, Dr., 102.
Phoenicians, 101.

Pickwick Papers, 31.

Piumstead, 5, 65.

Portrush, 78.

Port Victoria, 12.

Prayer Book, 54.

Preservation of gravestones, 62, 71.
Primitive gravestones, 12.
Professional gravestones, 31.

Public Gardens Association, 60.
Puritans, 53, 54.

Queen Elizabeth, 52.

Queen of Scots, Mary, 109.
Queenstown, 78, 82.

Rachel and Jacob, 97.

Rector’s prerogative, 73, 105.
Reform of graveyards, 57, 66.
Rhine Palls, 91.

Richmond, 29, 30, 45.

Ridley, 10.

Ripley, 30, 45.

Rochester, 13, 32.

Roden, River, 47.

Roman Catholic gravestones in
Scotland, 86.

Romans, 49, 101.

Romney Marsh, 29.

Romney, Old, 17.

Roovesmore, Ireland, 103.

Rough gravestones, 78, 86.

Round Tower, 78.

Royal Artillery, 27.

Rubbings of gravestones, 13.

Runic inscriptions, 83, 101, 102,
103.

Rush, Ireland, 79.

St. Mary Cray, 40.

St. Oswald, York, 27.

St. Patrick, 102.

St. Paul’s Cray, 41.

Saundersfoot, Wales, 108.
Scandinavia, 102.

Schaffhausen, 95.

Schoolmaster’s gravestone, 33.
Scotland, 84, 100, 104 ; antiquities,
99 ; sculptured stones of, 97.
Scots Greys, 27.

Sculptured stones of Scotland, 97.
Sects of sixteenth century, 53.
Sexton, the village, 36, 64, 75.
Shahnaneser II. of Assyria, 104.
Shetland, 100.

114

INDEX.

Shoreham, 17.

Shorne, 13, 14, 47, 48.

Sinking gravestones, 64.

Sir Benjamin Brodie, 59.

Sir Benjamin Hall’s Act, 58.
Skulls, grotesque, 11.

Slate slabs, 76, 80.

Snargate, 24.

Southfleet, 25, 48.

Stanstead, 16.

Stapleford Abbotts, 47.

Stapleford Tawney, 22, 47, 48.
Stephens, Hr. G., 83, 102.
Stirling, Scotland, 87, 88.

Stokes, Miss M., 102.

Stone’s (Mrs.) “ God’s Acre,” 62.
Stuart, Professor J., 97, 98, 99.
Sunda Isles, 62.

Sutton at Hone, 33.

Swanscombe, 23.

Switzerland, 91, 92.

Swords, Ireland, 78.

Table tombs, 86, 89.

Tawney, Stapleford, 22, 47, 48.
Teddington, 18.

Thames, Upper, 29.

Theydon Bois, 46.

Tipper ale, 3.

Tombs, age of, 51.

Totteridge, 46.

Tramps in Kent, 35.

Tramps, typical, 35, 43.

Turks’ graveyards, 62.
Twickenham, 29, 71.

Usaille, Bishop, 104.

Yery old gravestones, 97.
Victory over Death, 1, 20, 21.
Villages and cities, 28.

Wales, 75, 76, 104, 108.
Walker, Dr., epitaph, 108.
Walker, Dr. G. A., 58.
Walthamstow, 45.

Wanstead, 25, 44, 45.
Warwickshire, 75.

Weald of Kent, 16.

Weever, antiquary, 35, 52, 53.
West Ham, 6, 34, 44.

West Wickham, 19, 29.
White, Kirke, 75.

Wickham, East, 10, 24.
Wickham, West, 19, 29.
Widcombe, Bath, 3.
Wilmington, 24, 25 (2).
Woolwich, 24, 27, 43, 44.
Worcester, 109.

York, 27.

Zurich, Canton, 91.

London: Mitchell and Hughes, Printers, 140 Wardour Street, W.

NOW READY,

In Eighteen One Shilling Parts, or bound in Two handsome Volumes

at 25s.

THE RECORDS OF THE WOOLWICH DISTRICT.

By W. T. VINCENT,

. President of the Woolwich Antiquarian Society.

Comprising Woolwich, Plumstead, Charlton, Shooters’ Hill, Westcombe
Park, Eltham, Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Erith, and Bexley.

With Five Hundred Illustrations.

The Work is Dedicated, by permission, to H.R.H. Prince Arthur,
Duke of Connaught, and has been graciously accepted by Her
Majesty the Queen and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. It has
also been universally extolled in the Press, from which the following are
a few extracts : —

“ The Records of Woolwich. — Mr. Freeman long ago suggested
that it would be a useful division of labour if separate towns and districts
were described by those in the several localities who had special know¬
ledge on the subject, and he himself led the way in carrying out the
design. Of local guide-books so called there is no end, but what is wanted
in each case is an exhaustive history of the district, its natural formation,
its antiquities, and the many objects of interest that are sure to abound,
and that only want to be brought to light in order to form material for
the future historian of the English nation. This labour Mr. W. T. Vin¬
cent proposes to perform for Woolwich in a work which he entitles ‘ The
Records of the Woolwich District.’ Mr. Vincent has been engaged in
the task for twelve years. This is the work of a writer who has studied
his subject in all the places where information can be obtained. The
Preface alone will gain the reader’s attention, even if the locality itself
had no interest for him. It appears that Mr. Vincent had scented out
the existence of a sealed packet of papers having reference to Woolwich,
and, after a long hunt, ran the packet to earth in the British Museum.
It was not until the authorities of the War Office had deliberated for
a month on the subject that Mr. Vincent was allowed to see and open the
packet, which was more than a hundred years old, and contained maps,
plans, and views, several of which he produces.” — The Times.

“ We must resist the temptation to extract, and conclude this notice
by expressing our approval of the numerous facsimile reproductions of
old prints illustrative of the text, each on a leaf of plate paper, while
vignettes, maps, and plans are liberally dispersed through the letterpress,
which is executed by Messrs. Virtue and Co., the well-known printers of

EXTRACTS EROM THE PRESS — continued.

the Art Journal. As to the text, the industry, care, research, and obser¬
vation expended shew that it has been a labour of love. No prospect of
profit could urge the production of such a work. It is, therefore, doubly
reliable as a contribution to the antiquarian, topographical, anecdotal,
pictorial, and descriptive history of an interesting locality, executed by a
writer who is £ to the manner born.3 We fully hope that Mr. Thomas
Vincent, whose name is not unknown in the literary world, will reap his
reward of fame and respect from his townsmen, and of fair profit, which
his public spirit deserves.” — The Morning Advertiser.

“ £ The Records of the Woolwich District 3 deal with all the parishes
which surround Shooters3 Hill, necessarily dwelling most fully upon the
northern slope. Of Shooters3 Hill itself, and of all the other suburbs,
some novel and attractive tidings may be expected.33 — The Kentish
Independent.

“ There can be no doubt that such a work, adequately and conscien¬
tiously executed, is much needed, and may be of great value. It has
been undertaken by Mr. Vincent, well known as a journalist in the
locality, and as the author of that useful directory £ Warlike Woolwich.3
.... The printing has been entrusted to Messrs. Virtue and Co., the
proprietors of the Art Journal , a sufficient guarantee for its quality. We
are notified that there are over five hundred illustrations to be introduced,
including a series of maps and drawings, included in the £ sealed packet,3
and a hundred and fifty portraits of public persons, past and present.
.... We hope the publication will command the success it deserves. The
object of the author is evidently not mere money-making ; he has under¬
taken the work from an earnest and enthusiastic desire to supply a worthy
history of the locality with which he has been for his life connected, and
we congratulate him upon the excellent promise of his Eirst Number.33 —
The Kentish Mercury.

cf The elegance of the illustrations at once attracts attention. The
pictures, not only in their abundance and their interest, but in their ex¬
quisite presentment, are really excellent. Take the first of them, the
charming view of £ Pleasant Little Woolwich,3 a steel plate engraved in
1798, and now reproduced by photographic process. The scene which it
presents at a time when the author tells us this brick-covered, hard¬
working, dingy old town was a pretty village, and actually a fashionable
watering-place, to which people came from London to recruit health, as
they now go to Malvern and Scarborough, is delightful and refreshing
beyond measure. The whole of these illustrations are indeed full of
agreeable contemplation and fruitful in speculation .... He may honestly
be congratulated on the product of his labours, which, he tells us, have
been his recreation for many years. We can well believe it, and assure
him, if he has any regrets at the impossibility of a pecuniary return, that

EXTRACTS PROM THE PRESS — continued.

the satisfaction which his book will give will be a full reward. Such
books seldom pay ; they are not expected to do so, and any one may tell
that there is no profit in the venture. But it will supply a need, and the
writer’s name will be handed down to posterity as having provided a very
agreeable book.” — The Woolwich Gazette.

“ The neighbourhood, rich as it is in historical material, has hitherto
met with scanty recognition from historians, and we welcome Mr. Yincent’s
efforts to supply the need, and ihe generous spirit of his labours. He has
spared no pains to make the records complete. Patient research and
much literary skill are combined in the letterpress and woodcuts, engrav¬
ings, drawings, and photographs, with maps and plans, which have been

lavishly introduced by way of illustration . We content ourselves

now with pointing out its great value and entertaining power. The style
is easy, and the writer is happily successful in his endeavour to avoid any
appearance of merely dry-as-dust research.” — The JEltham , Sidcup, and
District Times.

“ It is a work which should prove of vast interest in our district, and
we ought to say very far beyond it, for there must be many who, though
not now residing in the area comprised in the ‘ Records,’ would be glad to
possess the book on its existence becoming known.” — The JErith Times.

“Mr. W. T. Yincent’s c Records of the Woolwich District’ is un¬
doubtedly the first volume which pretends to give a full and concise
history of the whole district.” — The Bexley Death and Drith Observer.

Order of Mr. W. T. Yincent, 189 Burrage Road, Woolwich; of
Messrs. Mitchell and Hughes, 140 Wardour Street, London, W. ; or
of any Bookseller.

NOW READY,

VOLUME II. OF THE

KENTISH NOTE BOOK.

A Record of Men, Manners, Things, and Events connected
with the County of Kent.

Edited by 0. 0. HOWELL.

Elegantly printed on toned paper, and handsomely bound in green
cloth, gilt lettered, 440 pages, demy octavo, with Frontispiece and several
Illustrations. Post free for 12s. 6d., from G. O. Howell, 210 Eglinton
Road, Plumstead, Kent.

EXTRACTS PROM PRESS NOTICES.

“ One of the best works of the kind that has yet been given to us by
the press.” — The Kentish Independent.

“ Edited by Mr. G. O. Howell, which is in itself a guarantee of its
excellence.” — Rochester and Chatham Times.

“The Editor deserves to be complimented on the excellence of his
production.” — Gravesend and Dartford Reporter.

“ Pew antiquarian publications with which we are acquainted are
more generally interesting or better conducted.” — Cardiff Weekly Mail.

“ The information is gathered from all points of the compass in the
county, and is arranged with the care of a skilful and experienced hand.”
— Chatham and Rochester News.

“ The articles and notes present a rich fund of information, which
cannot fail to delight the archaeological mind, and prove highly interesting
to the general reader.” — Gravesend Journal.

,-h'

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